Health

At a time when an increasing number of decisions made by consumers are being based on recommendations that gush forth from social media, hospitals cannot remain untouched, or for that matter shy away. Hospitals en masse are not really getting there as yet, but some have started taking small, furtive steps into a realm that where a hospital needs to take measured steps. One institution that has a sizable presence is Manipal Hospitals. Certainly sizable if one goes by the 1.5 lakh likes that it...

It's not just the spectre of developing cancer itself which is scary for India; it's state of cancer care in the country that is more ominous. And there are reasons to feel scared, outlines a major study on cancer care in India that is being released on Saturday. One of the reasons for the excessive burden of deaths from cancer in India is the existence of huge gaps between the demand and supply for cancer care: 95 per cent of the medical colleges in India do not have comprehensive cancer care...

Flu's getting scarier by the day. Three-quarters of people infected with seasonal flu and swine flu in recent years have shown no symptoms. In other words, in today's world you might be down with influenza till the end, but show no symptom of it. In any case, for instance, not everyone with flu will have fever. Researchers analysed data gathered in England during the winter flu seasons between 2006 and 2011, including the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic, and found that one in five of the...

The organisation of political power within and between nations and citizens if failing miserably to protect the public's health. Not that you didn't suspect it. But this time there is corroboration, and it comes in the form of findings of a new Commission from The Lancet and the University of Oslo. These power asymmetries, together with the piecemeal way that global decisionmaking has developed since World War II, are having a disastrous effect on human health, say the report's authors. The fact...

Leading medical researchers have called for a total overhaul of the global healthcare system. The entire structure of health-care delivery for effective antibiotics – from research and development, to distribution and rational use – needs to be re-engineered to address the looming global threat of antibiotic resistance, a global team of 26 scientists asserted in a report in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal on Sunday. The report presents a comprehensive global overview of the growing...

Scientists have reported on the world’s first confirmed case of human infection with a wild avian influenza A H6N1 virus. A genetic analysis of the virus identified in a Taiwanese woman shows that this virus has evolved the ability to target a receptor called SAa-2,6 found in the human upper respiratory tract, potentially enabling adaptation of the virus to human cells. The woman from central Taiwan presented to a hospital with flu-like symptoms and shortness of breath in May this year. She...

For a leading sportswear brand that thinks Bangalore to be a 'fit' city, the launch of Reebok India's first Fit Hub concept store might appear to have come a bit late in the day. That's because more than 30 such stores have already been opened across the country in the last four months. But that contention might miss the point. Reebok has been rolling out these stores in phases, and it is only now that Bangalore's chance has come. And the size does matter here. Erick Haskell, managing director...

Scientists from the US and Cambodia have developed a novel and rapid way to test whether the most common and lethal form of malaria is resistant to artemisinin, the key anti-malarial drug. “In the race against time to stop the spread of artemisinin-resistant malaria, new diagnostic tools are urgently needed to identify and track resistant parasites. These simple in vitro and ex vivo ring-stage survival assays (RSAs) can clearly identify artemisinin-resistant, slow-clearing Plasmodium falciparum...

With the birth of Nargis in a village 40 km from Lucknow this morning, the world's population touched seven billion. Lucknow is the capital of India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh. Nargis, weighing 3kg, was born at 7:20 this morning to Ajay (25) and Vineeta (23) at a local community health centre in Mall village, about 40 km from Lucknow, Davinder Kumar, Global Press Officer (Asia & Americas), Plan International, told this correspondent over phone. The parents want to see her educated, and...

For a country where health care is a sordid joke on the poor, India has something positive to show on this front. Polio, going by the law of averages, is on the verge of being eradicated from India. Only one polio case has been detected so far this year in the country, making it the longest polio-free period since eradication efforts were launched in 1995. The only case of polio reported this year (on January 13) has been from Howrah district in West Bengal compared to 39 cases in the same...