-Down to Earth Food poisoning cases in Bihar, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been highest in the last 6 years Some 979 school students have suffered food poisoning after eating mid-day meals in the first nine months of 2022, according to government data. The data has been collected by the Union government under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), a major health programme that is part of the National Health Mission. Some 120 students...

-Sabrang India/ Newsclick.in An audit by CAG blame poor infrastructure, insufficient inspections, irregular licensing and limited reporting. The Hindu reports that as schools re-opened and students returned to the classroom -two years after the pandemic -- serious cases of food poisoning due to the consumption of mid-day meals have resurfaced, and even grown. In the last 90 days alone as many as 120  students suffered from food poisoning across schools in Karnataka,...

-Down to Earth The disease has been on India’s radar since 2006; need to strengthen disease surveillance, train workforce and build robust laboratories    The death of an 11-year-old boy from Haryana at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences due to Avian influenza — the first such fatality in the country — has stressed the need to respond to zoonotic diseases in a timely manner.  Experts have flagged the emergence and re-emergence of...

Poisonous snakebites have killed more than a million Indians in the last two decades, finds a recently published article entitled Trends in snakebite mortality in India from 2000 to 2019 in a nationally representative mortality study. Published in the open access journal elifesciences.org, the research-based study has found that the country accounts for nearly half the total number of annual deaths in the world caused by snakebite envenoming. Who are the...

-The Pioneer Pollution alarm bell might be ringing aloud in Delhi, but several other cities are also facing similar grim situation due to rising air pollution and its impact on the health of the citizens. Recent data available from the Government shows that number of people suffering from respiratory diseases believed to be associated with air pollution exposure has shot up from 3.16 crore in 2012 to 3.48 crore in 2014. The...