Puducherry | Oct 31, 2010

The incidence of domestic violence has “unfortunately” not come down even after the implementation of The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005. This was largely due to lack of awareness of the issue and owing to some States lagging behind in measures such as appointment of protection officers as stipulated by the law, Chairperson of National Commission for Women (NCW) Girija Vyas has said. She said that contradicting provisions in a number of laws on the minimum eligible age for marriage had led to varied interpretations of these laws by courts in recent child marriage cases. In a bid to bring about clarity on this issue, the NCW has asked the government to consider bringing uniformity in the marriageable age and age of consent for girls, she said.

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Jaipur: Oct 31, 2010

Initial reports on the implementation of UNFPA-supported programme on “Strengthening gender response of panchayats in Rajasthan” have indicated a positive trend discernible among the elected representatives and rural population for addressing the key gender issues of maternal health and sex selection. The feedback of first three months from some of the village panchayats in 21 districts, where the project is being executed, was reviewed at a meeting of the programme advisory group here over the weekend. 

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Raipur: Oct 31, 2010

Last week, the medical journal Lancet published the results of a malaria survey undertaken by researchers as part of the Million Deaths Study, an ambitious programme that strives to document the causes of nearly one million deaths in India from the period 1998 to 2014. As per the survey 2,05,000 Indians die of malaria every year as compared to the World Health Organisation estimate of 15,000. These implications have prompted a fierce debate on the methodology behind either estimate.

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New Delhi: Oct 29, 2010

India has announced doubling of its contribution to the Partners in Population Development (PPD), an intergovernmental initiative for population and reproductive health related programmes. Participating in a meeting of the PPD in Indonesia, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said that India will increase its annual contribution toward the alliance from the present US $40,000 to US $80,000. Launched in 1994 ICPD, the PPD is an intergovernmental alliance of 24 countries.

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New Delhi: Oct 29, 2010

The Health Ministry has put forward a proposal for converting the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) into an apex body looking after communicable diseases. Health Ministry sources said that a cabinet note has been prepared for consultation with various ministries and the Prime Minister's Office. "The need has been felt to have an apex centre to deal with communicable diseases. We had two major ones, H1N1 and dengue this year, that is why this proposal has been mooted," a Health Ministry official said.

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New Delhi: Oct 27, 2010

A single oral vaccine that protects against two deadly strains of polio — P1 and P3 — could eradicate the crippling disease from the world in the next three years.
Scientific analysis of the vaccine - bivalent oral polio vaccine (BOPV), presently being used in India and Nigeria, two of the world’s poliovirus hotspots, has found that it induced a significantly higher immune response — 30% more than other trivalent or monovalent vaccines. 

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Bhubaneswar: Oct 24, 2010

Health administrators and researchers termed the revelation about malarial deaths in the State by Lancet, a leading general medical journal, as unrealistic. Lancet has recently published an article on ‘Adult and child malaria mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey' which says an estimated 51,000 people die of Malaria in Orissa in a year. 

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New Delhi: Oct 23, 2010

With the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) continuing at 2.8 per cent, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has pushed back the target date for achieving population stabilisation to 2070 from 2045, stipulated in the National Population Policy (NPP) 2000. It is “extremely difficult” to achieve it by 2045. Drawing the commission's attention to the serious ramifications for the overall development of the country, Mr. Azad said the challenge was to make up for lost time, bring back family planning and population stabilisation into political discourse and speed up the response at all levels.

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New Delhi: Oct 23, 2010

At a time when public-private partnership is the buzz word for any development project in the country, the organisation that started the ball rolling by first promoting privatisation and then the PPP model, the World Bank, seems to have had a rethink on the issue when it comes to public health, especially in the rural areas. The bank appears to be advocating direct provision of health care by the government as the best option for India. 

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New Delhi: Oct 23, 2010

To improve maternal and child health, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) — a monetary scheme for pregnant women and lactating mothers — on a pilot basis in 52 districts in this Five-Year Plan. Each pregnant and lactating woman will receive Rs. 4,000 in three instalments between the second trimester of pregnancy until the child is six months old. 

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