Current Affairs Foreign Affairs

A 45 million Pound partnership between Department of Bio-Technology, Government of India and Wellcome Trust, UK has been announced to support the development of innovative healthcare products at affordable costs. Two other new India-UK joint research projects – “Bridging the rural/urban divide” to provide technological solutions to improve the quality of life of rural inhabitants in both countries and multi disciplinary research partnerships to develop the next generation of environmentally friendly fuel cell technologies were also discussed when Sh. Prithviraj Chavan, Minister for Science and Technology met David Willets, Minister of State for Universities and Science, UK, in New Delhi last evening.

current affairs health

– Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.

The 192-member Assembly also called on United Nations Member States and international organizations to offer funding, technology and other resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for everyone.

Current Affairs Health :

The UN General Assembly recognised access to clean water and sanitation as a human right. After more than 15 years of debate on the issue, 122 countries voted in favour of a compromise Bolivian resolution enshrining the right, while 41 abstained. The text “declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life.”

Replacing traditional foods with imported, processed food has contributed to the high prevalence of obesity and related health problems in the Pacific islands. Jane Parry reports.

Scattered across the Pacific Ocean are thousands of islands which make up three regions known as Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Beyond the image of white sandy beaches and carefree lifestyles, the Pacific islands are facing serious health problems, the prime culprit being imported foods.

Even though India achieved the goal of elimination (i.e. point prevalence rate of less than 1 case per 10,000 population) of leprosy as a public health problem at national level in December 2005, higher prevalence of leprosy is reported in some areas. Therefore, new cases of leprosy occur due to long incubation period of disease and relatively higher prevalence of leprosy in certain areas of the country. However, new leprosy cases are showing a declining trend i.e. from 1.61 lakh cases in 2005-06 to 1.34 in 2009-10.

The government is aware that a number of pregnant women have been testing positive for HIV/AIDS in North India.

Besides the presence of high risk groups (Female Sex Workers, Men having Sex with Men and Injecting Drug Users) in North India, single male migration to areas with higher HIV prevalence is fueling the HIV epidemic. These migrant acquire HIV infection by indulging in risk behavior – unsafe sexual practices and injecting drugs at their destinations and further infect their wives on return.

Deaths due to water pollution occur mainly as a consequence of drinking of contaminated water. The common diseases caused by consumption of contaminated water are Cholera, Viral Hepatitis, Enteric Fever (Typhoid) and Acute Diarrhoeal Diseases (ADD).

The number of deaths reported State-wise on account of Cholera, Viral Hepatitis, Enteric Fever (Typhoid) and Acute Diarrhoeal Diseases (ADD) for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 are given in      Annexure – I-III.

As per the Sample Registration System (SRS 2008), the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) for India has been declining over the years and has declined from 57 per thousand live births in 2006 to 53 per thousand live births in 2008. The State-wise details of IMR with rural-urban break-up for the last 3 years is Annexed.

JSY has increased the proportion of pregnant women delivering in a health facility. Since its inception,Janani Suraksha Yojana has seen a sharp off take, from 7.04 lakh beneficiaries in 2005-06 to 92.29 lakhbeneficiaries in 2009-10. As per the District Level Household Survey (DLHS), Institutional delivery has increased  from 40.9% in DLHS -2 (2002 – 2004) to  47% in DLHS-3(2007 – 2008).

The testing of the Pandemic influenza H1N1 vaccines was undertaken by the Central Drug Laboratory, Kasuali (National Control Laboratory) and declared to be of Standard quality.  Details of the tests are at Annexure.

The price of H1N1 vaccine (Brand Name :VaxiFlu S) manufactured by M/s Zydus Cadila Health Care Limited, Ahmedabad  is Rs 3910 per vial (each vial containing 10 doses).

As per the global polio update report of WHO, 23 countries had reported polio cases in 2009 and 15 countries have reported polio cases in 2010. However, India is one of the four endemic countries for wild poliovirus.   State-wise details of polio cases for the years 2009 and 2010 areAnnexed.

Most of India is polio free and one of the three types of polioviruses i.e. p1, p2, and p3 – type 2 polio – has already been eradicated. The Government of India is adoptingmultipronged approach in identified high risk blocks of Western-Uttar Pradesh and Bihar by ensuring availability of clean water, sanitation improvement, improving routine immunization apart from conducting Supplementary Immunization Activity.

Last month saw the release of the India Country report for 2010, regarding progress made till date towards achieving specific targets in eight different areas, set by the United Nations in 2001 – known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDG targets are supposed to be achieved by 2015. While official pronouncements were an occasion to indulge in self congratulatory claims, a closer look at the real progress made, paints an entirely different picture. We examine here the claims being made and the reality as regards Goal 6 of the MDGs, titled: “Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases”.

The union government introduced on July 1, 2010 a service tax of 10.3 per cent on every claim made after using the cashless facility for treatment. On the same day, insurance companies curtailed the cashless mediclaim facility by drastically reducing the number of eligible hospitals. This move made an instant impact by bringing the cashless mediclaim transactions to a virtual standstill in the metros. But the central government’s move to introduce a service tax on every cashless mediclaim settled has, paradoxically, gone unnoticed.

What is the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus?

This is an influenza virus that had never been identified as a cause of infections in people before the current H1N1 pandemic. Genetic analyses of this virus have shown that it originated from animal influenza viruses and is unrelated to the human seasonal H1N1 viruses that have been in general circulation among people since 1977.

Antigenic analysis has shown that antibodies to the seasonal H1N1 virus do not protect against the pandemic H1N1 virus. However, other studies have shown that a significant percentage of people age 65 and older do have some immunity against the pandemic virus. This suggests that some people in the older age group may have some cross protection from exposure to viruses that have circulated in the more distant past.

The very expansion of the abbreviation NIEPMD-National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities clearly spells out the role of the institute.

NIEPMD established in 2005 under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is located at Muttukadu about 30 kilometers from Chennai in Kancheepuram District and is doing a yeoman service to the society with the motto that the persons with multiple disabilities have equal rights to lead a better life. This goal can be achieved only with committed professionalism, accessible environment and available technological interventions. This is where the institute is playing a vital role.

Children’s lives can be saved if HIV treatment starts earlier

Efforts worldwide on access to treatment for children with HIV have reached a new milestone, with 355 000 children receiving life-saving HIV treatment at the end of 2009, compared to 276 000 at the end of 2008; but many more lives could be saved if more infants started on medication earlier according to new recommendations from WHO.

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad chaired a meeting  in connection with the various actions taken by the Government for containment and mitigation of H1N1 cases in India. The meeting lasted for more than five hours from 4.30 pm to 10.00 pm in Nirman Bhawan. The meeting was attended by various eminent experts from public and private hospitals/ organizations besides the senior officers of Health Ministry Directorate General of Health Services.

♣ KEY FACTS ♣

• Essential medicines are medicines that satisfy the priority health care needs of a population. They are selected with regard to disease prevalence, safety, efficacy, and comparative cost-effectiveness.
• The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines includes over 350 medicines to treat priority conditions.
• The WHO Model List is updated every two years, using a transparent evidence-based process.
• The WHO Model List can be used by countries as a guide for the development of their own national essential medicines list.
• National lists of essential medicines can be used as the basis for procurement and supply of medicines in the public and private sector, schemes that reimburse medicine costs, medicine donations and to guide local medicine production.

Most of India’s estimated 1.2 billion people have to pay for medical treatment out of their own pockets. In our continuing series on health financing, Patralekha Chatterjee reports on a scheme that is providing health care to families living below the poverty line.

Over the past year, 28-year-old Parameshwari Arun, a part-time maid in south Delhi, has borrowed the equivalent of US$ 1000 to pay for her six-year-old son’s medical treatment. Despite this expenditure, they still do not know what ails their son or whether he is likely to get better.

Here’s yet another reason why you should kick the butt – smoking influences gene function, a new study has claimed.

Researchers at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research have found that exposure to cigarette smoke can alter gene expression — the process by which a gene’s information is converted into the structures and functions of a cell.

At the instance of the Department of AYUSH, the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy (CCRH) had convened a meeting of a Group of Experts in Homoeopathy, chaired by Dr. Diwan Harish Chand, Vice President of the Governing Body of the Council to suggest ways & means of prevention of flu like illnesses through Homoeopathy on July 8 2010.