According to recent estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO) there's been a sharp drop in the number of polio cases this year as compared to the last. "This is the biggest drop we have seen in the last six years," said Dr J S Bhasin. The number of cases of type-1 polio is only 16 this year as compared to 51 last year, while type-3 cases stand at 23 against last...

India's health industry was crippled back in 2008, when the then Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss decided to shut down three public sector Vaccine units — to give contracts to a private firm. Two years back when the three public sector Vaccine units were shut down, it led to a shortage of critical Vaccines like BCG, DPT and Anti TB Vaccines in India. CNN-IBN has accessed the probe report, which has found...

The report of the Javid Chowdhury Committee facilitated the resumption, in February 2010, of Vaccine production in the three public sector units, one in Himachal Pradesh and the other two in Tamil Nadu. Javid Chowdhury, a former Health Secretary of the Government of India, recommended that the suspension of their licenses for manufacturing Vaccines in 2008 should be revoked in the public interest and on the strength of the compliance...

India’s public health system has become dysfunctional. There is no reason at all why vector-borne and other infectious diseases should recur with predictable regularity after every monsoon season. Government, especially state and local governments, must take primary responsibility for this malaise. Equally, civil society. A combination of governmental negligence and public apathy contributes to the unacceptably high incidence of diseases like dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, swine flu, conjunctivitis (eye flu)...

Sitting on his father’s shoulders, two-year-old Rahul Kumar giggles and tugs on a lock of his father’s hair. A happy, healthy-looking boy, Rahul has already seen much of India. Born in a small village in northern Bihar, he has spent roughly half of his short life in Punjab, where his parents work as seasonal farm labourers. He has spent a few months in his parents’ village. The rest has been spent...