New study reveals alarming levels in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America that are resistant to four powerful antibiotics

Prevalence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR- TB) is increasing due to expanded use of second-line drugs in people suffering from multidrug-resistant (MDR) diseases, reveals a new study. This large, prospective study of resistance to second-line drugs for MDR-TB shows that the prevalence of resistance is high (43.7 per cent) and that the risk of XDR-TB (6.7 per cent) in the eight countries studied is worrying.

The National Committee in Solidarity with Jaitapur Struggle — a group of like-minded political people opposed to setting up nuclear power projects — has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to cancel the proposed plant in the coastal town of Maharashtra.

Citing concerns over the safety of the proposed reactors at Jaitapur and the financial credentials of the French company building them, the Committee has said the Centre and the Maharashtra government do not seem to have paid due attention to the serious objections raised by experts, parliamentarians, public figures and the local people.

Communist Party of India MP D. Raja has expressed concern at the State governments notifying buffer zones in tiger reserves. He argued that the move would violate the livelihood rights of lakhs of people.

In a letter, he asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to halt the exercise and ensure that the Supreme Court is informed of the actual legal and ground positions. Failure to do so will amount to violation of the rights of lakhs of people and ensuring that tiger conservation is once again seen as an excuse by the forest bureaucracy to empower and enrich itself.

In the wake of references being made to investigate the health issues of mine workers, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) proposes to establish a statutory authority.

Cancer, tuberculosis, silicosis, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and pulmonary function impairment such as asthma affect mine workers. The proposed authority will coordinate with the Ministries and authorities concerned for taking administrative, legal and medical action.

Scheme coming for free distribution of medicines through public hospitals and health centres

The government will expand the scope of the NRHM to all towns and cities, by converting it into a National Health Mission (NHM), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Wednesday. In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort here, he said the government was also formulating a new scheme for distribution of free medicines through public hospitals and health centres.

Health activists have strongly opposed the draft guidelines brought out by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) on the quantum of financial compensation to be paid in case of clinical trial-related injury or death, saying age and income could not be the lone criteria for calculating the amount.

The draft guidelines, put up on the CDSCO website for comments, say that for assessing compensation, the age and income of the deceased and the seriousness and severity of the disease the subject was suffering from at the time of his or her participation in the trial should be taken into consideration. It has also suggested a formula for calculating the amount.

Activists are up in arms against the Planning Commission for its proposal in the 12Th Five Year Plan document that seeks to restructure the health care system in a way that it would be handing it over to the corporate sector.

“It is particularly problematic that the Plan document to be adopted by the end of this month, invokes the concept of Universal Health Care, while it actually proposes a strategy that is far removed from the basic tenets of universal health care,” Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, a conglomerate of rights-based health activists, said here on Wednesday.

Proposal is for exclusive institutional education with boarding

The Uttar Pradesh government is awaiting clearance from the Centre for an ambitious project to rehabilitate children disabled by Japanese encephalitis (JE) and acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) that kill hundreds and handicap an equal number every monsoon season in eastern U.P. and the adjoining region. Brain fever affects the nervous system, resulting in mental retardation and hearing impairment.

The disease has already claimed 145 lives in the region this year

At a time when people are praying for a bountiful monsoon, rains bring death and devastation in the eastern belt of Uttar Pradesh. And if the locals are to be believed, the season of death has started as encephalitis cases are reported from across the region. For years now, hundreds of children have been dying and an equal number have been disabled for life because of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), more specifically Japanese encephalitis (JE), commonly called brain fever.

Concerned regarding the rights of children under the age of 6 years, civil society groups have asked the government to focus on a comprehensive approach towards providing a sound foundation for sur