Hyderabad: Contaminated water has claimed 108 lives in the state this year, according to figures stated in the Parliament by Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. The city is not immune to the trend, and cases of diarrhoea and gastroenteritis seem to be high. City hospitals have registered about 1,200 cases of acute diarrhoeal diseases this year.

Dr Kiran Peddi, gastroenterologist at Global Hospitals, said that he has been attending to seven to 10 cases every week. “It is mostly diarrhoea or vomiting, or sometimes a combination of both, resulting in gastroenteritis. There are jaundice and typhoid cases as well,” Dr Peddi said.

Even as one in four deaths worldwide in 2010 was caused by heart disease or stroke — the top two killers that have remained constant for the past 40 years — human mortality caused by climate change

The sex ratio in the national capital has increased from 821 in 2001 census to 866 in 2011, but it is still below the national ratio, according to data released by the Delhi government which puts the city’s population at 1.67 crore.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit released the Delhi Statistical Hand Book on Tuesday. The book that the sex ratio was 866 females per 1,000 males in the capital in 2011, as compared to 821 females per 1,000 males in 2001. National sex ratio in 2011 was 940 females per 1,000 males.

Globally 2.5 billion people have no clean toilets and 1.1 billion people defecate in the field of which 40 million are in Pakistan.

A modest yet consistent decline in the infant mortality rate, especially in six problematic states, is one of the key features of the latest data from the Sample Registration System.

One hundred and seventy-four children dead in 2010, 133 in 2011, 158 this year.

Residents of slums, poorly developed residential colonies in urban areas face ordeals ranging from diseases to sexual harassment because of little or no access to functioning and clean toilets, rev

There is a bad news: India may not be able to meet Millennium Development Goals for Women and Children’s health by the target year of 2015.

Being an Indian and below 5 years of age is a rather dangerous prospect right now. The odds seem to be piling up against Indian toddlers — a recent Unicef report has claimed that 16.55 lakh below-5 kids die each year in the nation, leading the world in child mortality.

According to the ‘Child Mortality Estimates Report 2012’, India’s under-five death toll is higher than the deaths in Nigeria, Congo and Pakistan put together. The killer diseases may be many — pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria figure as the top causes of death; but it all boils down to the nutrition of the mothers during pregnancy, and that given to the baby, say experts here.