Full coverage: Health

30.12.2005 Still struggling with the issue of over a lakh women dying at childbirth every year, health experts are still debating whether traditional birth attendants, called dai in rural areas, should be actively involved in the family welfare programme.

30.12.2005 A recent report by an Indian government agency says that little attention is being paid to the standardisation, research and development of the Indian traditional system of medicine - ayurveda.

29.12.2005 With the international community expressing concern about the high maternal and infant mortality in India, Union Health Ministry is looking at inter-ministerial partnerships to tackle the problem. Instead of running parallel programmes the ministry and the Department of Women and Child Development have decided to converge at the village level.

27.12.2005 Ludhiana's Deputy Inspector General, Parag Jain launched a new medical scheme, ‘Health for All’, at Satkar Palace in the Khanna district of Ludhiana.

27.12.2005 Despite several intervention programmes,one-to-one contact continues to plague the largest and most important "link" in India's battle against HIV virus.National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) begins its Phase III intervention this section needs immediate attention for the AIDS control programme to be successful in the country.

26.12.2005 Health Minister of Karnataka, N. Cheluvaraya Swamy said the Government will support all non-governmental initiatives to organise health melas in the State.

26.12.2005 The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI) has been promoting telemedicine by creating links with some hospitals in the interior of Punjab and providing tele-education by conducting CME.

26.12.2005 A year after the Indian Ocean tsunami,as part of the United Nations coordinated inter-agency response, UNFPA country offices in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Thailand are helping to rebuild and re-equip damaged health facilities by continuing to provide training and supplies to local governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to offer services at temporary sites and mobile clinics. A key priority is maternal health care.

26.12.2005 The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with George Washington University Law School (GWULS) is organising a series of International IPR Conferences and Moot Court in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

26.12.2005 Roche has granted a sub-license to the Indian company Hetero Drugs for the production of oseltamivir (Tamiflu), as part of continued efforts to increase and speed up availability of the medicine for influenza pandemic planning world wide.

23.12.2005 Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, a national coalition of health related large networks and NGOs has initiated a political and legal process to demand basic healthcare as a fundamental right of every citizen guaranteed under Indian constitution.

23.12.2005 When Dil Bhushan Pathak, a popular newscaster in Nepal, was reading the news one night, he came across an item that caused him to skip a heartbeat. In the remote Achham district in far-western Nepal, a woman had died a painful death. She was undergoing a clandestine abortion using a traditional method - the insertion of a heated rod smeared with herbal paste into the uterus.

23.12.2005 The Union Cabinet has approved a national policy aimed at setting up mechanisms for the promotion and protection of rights of persons with disabilities and to provide them equal opportunity to participate fully in social activities.

23.12.2005 India will soon have its first most advanced mobile breast cancer detection unit, thanks to London-based NRI Paul Chawla and his friends British first lady Cherie Blair, Sarah Kennedy (wife of Liberal Democratic chief Charles Kennedy), British MPs Simon Hughes and John Prescott and former minister Baroness Amos.

22.12.2005 With protests now becoming an integral part of WTO ministerials it is hardly surprising that the organisation likes to project its decisions as having a human face.

22.12.2005 For a long time non-resident Indians have been donating for causes associated with their native villages or hometowns for schools, dispensaries or roads. In what is a rare example of donation targeted specifically for carrying out the battle against AIDS, cancer and TB in Punjab, a New York-based NRI today told the Punjab Government that he would spend $1 million (Rs 4.5 crore) on the project.

22.12.2005 A leading private ophthalmic hospital in Chennai has designed a 0.7 mm phaco needle tip that works in tandem with a matching irrigating chopper to provide ophthalmologists the smallest tools ever used for cataract surgery.

22.12.2005 Digital hearing aids are now available in Chennai. Though expensive, they may be the best available in the market. The device that fits snugly behind the ear or in the ear canal is almost invisible.

21.12.2005 This World Bank report examines the impacts of donor-supported programmes for maternal and child health, nutrition, and fertility in Bangladesh. It reports that under-five mortality has been reduced substantially since the 1990s, but malnutrition remains high.

21.12.2005 In rural Nepal few mothers use modern obstetric and midwifery services. Since 1997 the Nepal Safer Motherhood Project (NSMP) has been working with the Government of Nepal to reduce maternal mortality and to enable pregnant women to make informed decisions. The project’s success owes much to its use of Key Informant Monitoring (KIM).