Health targets fail as they are set without strategies. The 12th Five-Year Plan should be used to look at the changes needed in the public health system. Health is currently a privilege in India. Not a right. Maternal and child health remains neglected even after countless plans, programmes and political proclamations. Every year, nearly 60,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth, while approximately 1.7 million children less than five years of...

-The United Nations   The United Nations today declared that the world has completely eradicated a cattle disease that has killed millions of bovines for millennia. It is the first animal disease to be officially declared eradicated – and only the second disease ever, after smallpox. A resolution approved by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at its meeting in Rome today stated that the world was free of rinderpest, or...

Poor Andhra villagers now victims of clinical drug trials No Drug Resistance     * 35 women, some men from Guntur district put throughclinical trials of a breast cancer drug. They later complain of joint pains, nausea and chest pains.     * Biotech industry in Andhra is worth about Rs 455 crore     * Touts operating on behalf of pharma companies get people from the poorer districts to Hyderabad for the tests *** Some 35 women...

A Central team of doctors finally termed the disease encephalitis Parents not admitting their children to government hospitals Muzaffarpur: Kejriwal Matri Sadan, sited in the heart of Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, is exploding with fear, panic and chaos over a ‘mystery' disease – a disease that has claimed the lives 36 children in less than two weeks. Screaming infants, convulsing in terrible pain, present a stark contrast to the smug, matter-of-fact versions of health...

-The Hindu   Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat on Thursday demanded action against those responsible for allowing clinical trials of the human papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat without following the guidelines and ethics. Speaking at a seminar organised by the All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) here on “Cervical Cancer Vaccine — Consequences” the CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member said the poor in the country were...