Journal of Health in India

Health policy and enforcement in India is an area of abject neglect and increasingly a source drama because Health is not something that is considered important in the Federal Ministry. But health of India is becoming more important as the visibility into major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, and Leprosy are being highlighted by many international organizations and media reports.<More>

• Unchecked AIDS Will Deplete Workforce
  Confirming results of a recent study by 3 premier institutions, International Finance Corporation Principal Strategy Officer Sabine Durier warned that India’s booming economic growth will decelerate drastically if it does not check spread of HIV-AIDS. <More>

• Focus on Children with AIDS
  National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) Director-General Sujatha Rao said that her organization has “finalized the treatment protocol for pediatric AIDS” and “awaiting Government clearance” to “train doctors to start the program in medical colleges." <More>

• AIDS Campaign Launched
  A joint operation by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports have launched a 5-year Youth Unite for Victory on AIDS (YUVA) plan aimed at reaching out to adolescents and youth. <More>

• Indian woman faces high risk of AIDS
  New survey data show that a majority of HIV-infected women did not report a history of multiple partners, intravenous drug use, or blood transfusions and seem to have been infected through sex with their infected husbands. <More>

• Measures to Control AIDS on Highways
  Analysts believe that better highway facilities could reduce incidence of AIDS among high-risk truck drivers and helpers and that would consequently bring down the number of incidence in non-risky population such as the wives and children of this mobile group. <More>

• AP is AIDS Capital of India
  Bad sexual practices, low condom usage, and lack of awareness has earned Andhra Pradesh (AP) the dubious distinction of being India’s AIDS capital with over 20% the country’s 5.1 million. <More>

• Novel HIV-AIDS Train To Educate Villages
  India will soon host a novel project that will allow artists, doctors, and counselors will travel by a special train that will make 40,000 stops to educate villages about the dangers of HIV-AIDS. <More>

• India Could Lead HIV Cocktail Market
  A Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Hans Hogerzeil said that India has the perquisites to become the leading supplier of HIV fixed-dose combinations for children. <More>

• Awareness & Ed Could Reduce AIDS cases
  A British team of scientists from Imperial College, London said that awareness, education, and changed sexual behavior caused huge declines in AIDS infections in East Zimbabwe. <More>

Health Policy Making

• Diabetes and Fizz Soda
  After introducing a plan to curb smoking in movies, Federal Health Minister Anbumani Ramdoss is now asking movie actors and cricketers to stop being brand ambassadors to aerated drinks to curb obesity and diabetes among children. <More>

• Central Tobacco Authority Being Planned
  Federal Minister of Health Anbumani Ramdoss said that a Central Tobacco Authority (CTA) with unprecedented powers to implement the provisions of the Tobacco Act is being planned and revealed in the next couple of months. <More>

• Smoking Ban in Bollywood Movies
  After months of debate and indecision, the Health and the Information and Broadcasting Ministries seemed to have decided that smoking in movies is definitely bad for India and have proposed a series of measures. <More>

• Ayurvedic Drug Labeling Made Compulsory
  The Health Ministry has made all Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha, and Herbal medicine labeling compulsory and has extended the deadline to July 1 of this year. <More>

• Two Doctors Testing Fetal Sex Convicted
  For the first time, two doctors who tested the sex of the child in the fetus of the mother have been convicted for violating the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Regulation & Prevention of Misuse Act, 1994.  <More>

• Contingency plans to check Bird Flu
  In a belated move, the Government has at last woken up to the reality of bird flu epidemic in India and released a contingency plan with specific timelines for all the states to follow. <More>

• WHO Declares Diabetes a Pandemic
  Experts attending the Diabetes Summit in Hanoi, Vietnam said that it was high time that the World Health Organization declared the disease a pandemic.  <More>

• Epidemiological Study Required to Understand India Outbreak
  At the end of a two-day meeting of the Asia Pacific Advisory Committee on Influenza (APACI), AIIMS Department of Medicine representative Randeep Guleria speculated that the H5N1 virus will die as the summer peaks. <More>

• Govt to Regulate 9000 Ayurvedic Companies
  The Indian Council for Medical Research said that it would start testing of Ayurvedic, Unani, and Sidhha drugs on animals.  <More>

• ISRO to Assist in Health
  The Federal Health Ministry and National Institute of Communicable Diseases in a tie-up with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will link 400 sites countrywide. <More>

• Survey Finds Fall in Sex Ratio
  A study published in the British medical journal "The Lancet" says that 10 million fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past 20 years because of ultrasound sex screening.  <More>