-Scroll.in One of India’s most renowned epidemiologists cautions against unsustainable lockdowns and says community participation is the key to fight the disease. Jayaprakash Muliyil is one of India’s foremost epidemiologists, with decades of experience in the study of infectious diseases. The former principal of the Christian Medical College in Vellore spoke to Scroll.in about India’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. He said the stage of community transmission, when the source of infection for...

-The Hindu Business Line The manner in which alternating wet and dry spells trigger disease and morbidity needs to be better understood Monsoon fury was in full display this year with record floods over Kerala as well as widespread floods from Gujarat to the North-East. The season also produced a wide swathe of drought that covered much of peninsular India with a smattering of districts from Gujarat to the eastern regions and...

-TheWire.in Maharashtra cannot retain its position as a progressive state if health budget cuts become a characteristic part of its budgets. Massive budget cuts and budget under-spending in the social sector have been reported from Maharashtra over the last two years. The state spent as less as 0.49% of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) on the public health sector in 2017-18. Incidentally, the state also witnessed high malnourishment, rising leprosy cases,...

-TheWire.in A Bengal doctor has been suspended after he wrote a Facebook post on the dengue crisis. The case is similar to another doctor in Mumbai who was ‘raided’ for identifying totally-drug-resistant TB cases. Dr Arunachal Dutta Choudhury, a doctor of general medicine at the Barasat District Hospital in West Bengal, likes to write in verse. His Facebook wall is filled with his Bengali poems. His favourite form is the end rhymes,...

-PTI Ahmedabad: The state government today told the Gujarat High Court that there was a shortage of specialist doctors at community health centres as they were generally unwilling to work in rural areas and small towns. In an affidavit filed in response to a PIL seeking the courts direction to the state to provide better diagnosis and treatment facilities to control vector-borne diseases, the government said that it was fully equipped to...