-The Hindu Around the world, nearly 1.6 billion people are affected by a group of diseases so ignored that the term used to refer to them is called neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). These are a cluster of 17 diseases affecting the poorest people living in the least developed pockets of the world. While some of these diseases may be unfamiliar, leprosy, kala-azar and filariasis are better known in India and being targeted...

-Business Standard/ India Spend Under-nutrition increases the severity of TB, reduces patients' speed of recovery Mt Abu/Abu Road: One look at Puni Garasia, 14, was all it took Ashok Dave, a doctor operating a charitable mobile clinic service for 56 dusty, desolate hamlets in Sirohi, southwest Rajasthan, to suspect tuberculosis (TB). “She was all skin and bones,” Dave, an employee of Global Hospital & Research Centre, a health not-for-profit, told IndiaSpend. On March 24,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's government-funded health insurance schemes have increased patients' access to hospitalisation but failed to reduce their households' personal out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, the most comprehensive review of the schemes so far has found. The review by public health analysts has found increases ranging from 12 per cent to 244 per cent in hospital-based services across the country since the schemes were launched a decade ago. But there is no...

-The Hindu While hypertension and cardiovascular disease are significantly associated with increased risk of renal failure deaths, diabetes is the leading factor Deaths from renal failure among Indian adults now outstrip deaths from HIV/AIDS, signalling a major shift in causes of mortality in the country over the past decade — away from infectious disease causes to non-communicable disease causes. These are the results of a study published recently in The Lancet. As per...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre has decided to write to all state governments asking them to launch a crackdown on outdoor advertisements of traditional medicines that claim to "magically" cure various illnesses and cosmetic problems. Sources in the Union information and broadcasting ministry said the letters will be sent out following a nudge from the Union ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy. The Ayush ministry, a few months...