Entering third polio-free year, India must destroy all wild poliovirus lab samples by December

Having successfully completed two polio-free years, India is preparing to receive the crucial polio eradication certificate from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The certificate is issued on completion of incident-free three years. This primarily involves the destruction or safe storage of all laboratory sources of wild poliovirus. The storage should be in laboratories that meet international standards of biosafety.

BHOPAL: The future and functioning about sole super-speciality hospital for treatment of Bhopal gas victims- Bhopal memorial hospital and research centre (BMHRC) will be deliberated upon at a meeting of Supreme Court appointed 17-member expert committee here on Thursday.

The committee headed by Lt Gen (Retd) Dr D Raghunath, principal executive (Retd.) Sir Dorabji Tata Centre for Research in Tropical Diseases has been constituted by the apex court to look into the functioning of BMHRC and recommend to improve its efficiency as a super speciality medical centre.

New Delhi: Children in the national capital are more vulnerable to air pollution than their counterparts in other states and in more ways than one.

The Centre proposes to move at least 250 amendments to the National Food Security Bill when it is tabled in Parliament during the current Budget session.

The Bill, which seeks to give subsidised foodgrains to identified beneficiaries, will take into consideration the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food. Disclosing this, Right to Food activists said that during their meeting with the Minister of State for Food K.V. Thomas, they were given the assurance that the 2.5 crore Antyodaya Anna Yojana beneficiaries will continue to get 35 kg of concessional foodgrains.

110 deaths since January; 148 since April 2012; 586 since 2009

The Rajasthan Government on Monday cautioned about rising incidence of swine flu (H1N1) in the State and sought Central assistance even as the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Government of not being serious about addressing the epidemic-like situation. The virus has claimed over 110 lives in the State this year while 148 people have died of the disease since April 2012. Since 2009, when the epidemic first broke out in the state, a total of 586 people have succumbed to the disease.

Air pollution has jumped to number five spot amongst the top killers in India.

Releasing India-specific data, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) warned that outdoor air pollution caused 627,000 deaths and 17.7 million healthy years of life lost in 2010. Worldwide, outdoor air pollution caused 3.2 million premature deaths and over 74 million years of healthy life lost in 2010.

Disease Affecting More Women Than Men, Reveals ICMR Study

Lucknow: Oncologists in the country see Uttar Pradesh as the emerging cancer capital of India. Findings of the Population Based Cancer Registry functioning under the National Cancer Registry Programme of Indian Council of Medical Research, suggest that UP accounts for more than 16% of cancer patients in India. Figures show that more than 10.55 lakh cancer cases were reported in the country in 2011. Of the total, 1.71 lakh patients hail from UP.

“Sixty per cent of cancer patients are actually being treated by non-oncologists”

The Indian Council of Medical Research is evolving standards of care and treatment protocols for 34 common types of cancer. Purvish Parikh, managing trustee, Indian Cancer Care Society, and president, Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology, said the guidelines for some specific conditions were already available on the ICMR website, and subcommittees were working to define treatment for other conditions.