Dietary guidelines for India 2024
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently revised the dietary guidelines for Indians to provide healthier diet and lifestyle recommendations, ensuring dietary and nutritional requirements
Child Health
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Emergency drive to contain polio strain
The health ministry is planning an emergency mop-up operation that will vaccinate three lakh children living in and around Kirti Nagar against polio to contain further spread of the deadly P1 strain of the virus in Delhi. The decision was taken after the country's first PI strain of wild polio virus sprung up this year from Darbangia Colony in Kirti Nagar. Since this is the first P1 polio case in Delhi after August 2006, which had made officials declare the city free of the virus last year, shocked state polio eradication experts have now identified 2,500 high risk clusters, mostly occupied by migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
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Midday Meal
Rs 2.80 a day for fuel makes cooking a challenge Government Primary School, Rukali village, Chhachhrouli, has a total of 14 students. They get Rs 2.80 a day as budget for fuel to cook midday meal whereas cost of cattle dung cake is Rs 1 per cake, firewood is Rs 5 a kg and one kg of coal is available for Rs 22 in market. Cooking midday meal on fuel purchase for Rs 2.80 a day is
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Bihar likely source of polio virus in Capital
Officials with the National Polio Surveillance Programme today said the first polio case detected in the Capital this year could have come from Bihar. The 14-month-old Baby Gulnaaz from Kirti Nagar was detected with the P1 strain poliovirus, known for its propensity to cause large outbreaks. According to government records, Gulnaaz was taken to Moti Nagar Colony Hospital on February 15 when it was found that her right limb was immobile. "She had high fever and investigations confirmed that she has polio. Though we are yet to do any genetic analysis, it seems that that the virus has travelled from Bihar,' said a senior official with the National Polio Surveillance Programme. Till date this year, 106 polio cases have been isolated in India but all of them have been P3 strains. This is the first P1 polio case in Delhi after August 2006. The neighbouring cities of Ghaziabad and Faridabad have been put on high alert, the official said. "If such a case is reported from an area, what follows is an immunisation drive. The government will try to do that as soon as possible,' a Delhi government official said. In the present case, the patient is a resident of Darbhanga jhuggis, a slum populated mostly by migrant labourers from Bihar. Officials said Gulnaaz was administered 11 doses of polio vaccine in the last two national immunisation rounds in January and February this year. While Delhi recorded seven cases of polio P1 virus in 2006, the state government had last year, claimed the Capital was free of the P1 virus. However, there has been an outbreak of the dreaded P1 virus in Bihar this year with 83 cases being reported from the state. Gulnaaz's family reportedly came to the Capital from Bihar six months back. With focus on the polio scare in the country, particularly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram allocated Rs 1,042 crore for a revised strategy on the crippling disease. India recorded 864 cases in 2007 as against 676 cases the previous year. The poliovirus enters the body through the mouth when people eat food or drink water contaminated with faeces. The virus then multiplies in the intestine, enters the bloodstream and may invade certain types of nerve cells, which it can damage or destroy.
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Polio eradication
The first reported case of a deadly polio strain in a girl from a Delhi slum underscores how the challenge of health has become similar to a war in more ways than one. The public policy response needed is much more complex than that to the danger posed by an outbreak of bird flu in the country's poultry population. The polio problem requires an ongoing effort that cannot be divorced from the state of health delivery in the country. The virus has escaped eradication in those states which have some of the worst health indicators, rickety delivery systems and huge numbers of the desperately poor who form the bulk of the country's job migrants. It is hard for the health administration to track a poor and mobile population with a high likelihood of being carriers of communicable diseases like polio. Until now, the government machinery in the states or at the Centre has shown precious little awareness of this facet of the problem. True, the Union Budget for 2008-09 has allocated as much as Rs 1,042 crore to the cause of polio eradication. The finance ministry has not been stingy. Saving the tiger has got only a fraction of that sum. But will the money be used effectively? The polio problem offers a striking parallel with the Naxalite menace in large parts of India. Just as the police posts charged with the task of law-and-order across hundreds of sq km of Indian forests have little idea where the next militia attack will come from, the country's sad-looking primary medical centres have very little knowledge of how polio is spreading among population groups in geographical areas left unmonitored. It is a very large country. Despite heavier spending and more national taskforces, efforts to tackle polio would have limited success unless the entire health delivery system is padded up in the country, just as policing methods have been spruced up for new challenges. The difficulty here is not the funds, but the lack of any clear political dividend from the adoption of such steps. More jobs mean more votes, but what about better health? Also, health problems require active cooperation from the afflicted population groups, and thus outreach plans and persuasion methods are important. So long as nobody seems to have a direct stake in the success of these efforts, their quality will remain indifferent.
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More than a meal (Editorial)
The future of India lies in the health of her children. The latest Human Development Report shows that 47 per cent children are underweight. Over 34 per cent of Indians live on less than Rs 40 a day. The mid-day meal (MDM) scheme is thus a necessity. It is an investment the country makes in the health of its children. But unfortunately, the government's implementation of the scheme leaves much to be desired in most parts of the country. Recently, some of our young MPs
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Anti-polio drive from tomorrow
A special campaign against polio will be launched on March 4 and anti-polio drops will be administered to 6.52 million children. A statement on Sunday said as many as 19,000 teams would participate in the drive. The EPI will confer awards on officers of the health department, doctors and other relevant staff in recognition of their outstanding work for the eradication of polio. An award distribution ceremony in this connection will be held on March 5. Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice (retd) Abdul Qadir Halepota will be the chief guest on the occasion.
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Wild polio virus strain claims 1st victim in city
This year's first P1 wild polio virus strain has been isolated in Delhi. Fourteen-month-old Gulnaz from Darbangia colony in Kirti Nagar area is the victim. Daughter of a rickshawpuller, the girl's family migrated from Bihar just six months ago. She was supposedly administered 10 doses of oral polio vaccine in the last two national immunization rounds in January and February this year. Till now this year, 106 polio cases have been isolated in India but all of them have been P3 strains. This is the first P1 polio case in Delhi after August 2006. P1 has been India's major enemy with the global advisory committee on polio giving top priority to its eradication. The Union health ministry successfully contained its spread in 2007 with just 36 cases. For the first time since 1999, the number of P3 cases had outnumbered the number of infections caused by P1 strain. P1 travels faster and infects more children, which is why the emphasis was on eradicating type 1 first. P3 is a very slow moving virus with low virulence. P1 causes paralysis in one out of every 200 children, as compared to P3, which causes paralysis in one out of every 1,000 infections. Health ministry sources told TOI that a polio vaccination round is scheduled to take place in Delhi this month. But states can undertake an emergency mopup operation whenever a P1 strain crops up. Polio has been crippling India, with 864 cases in 2007 compared to 676 cases in 2006. This made finance minister P Chidambaram allocate Rs 1,042 crore just for polio in the Union Budget for 2008-09, most of which will be spent to contain the virus in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Bihar, which reported 193 fresh cases of the crippling disease in 2007, has been exporting polio strains across India. An alarmed health ministry has now marked 72 blocks in Bihar as high risk. These blocks or the ones adjacent to them accounted for three-fourths of the total polio cases in the state in the past five years. In 2007, 90% of P1 cases were found in these blocks. According to experts, polio immunisation activities are being intensified in these blocks. A special immunization drive was conducted on January 13 in these 72 blocks. A ministry official told TOI:
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Low dose effect of chronic lead exposure on neuromotor response impairment in children is moderated by genetic polymorphisms
Previous research on children of the Cincinnati Lead Program Project (CCLP) showed a strong correlation of blood lead level with postural balance impairment.
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Cost and effectiveness analysis of immunization service delivery support in Andhra Pradesh, India
The immunization service delivery support (ISDS) model was initiated in Andhra Pradesh, India, in November 2003 with the aim of strengthening immunization services through supportive supervision. The ISDS model involves a well-established supervision system built upon the existing health infrastructure. March 2008
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The Effect of ambient air pollution during early pregnancy on fetal ultrasonic measurements during mid-pregnancy
Over the past decade there has been mounting evidence that ambient air pollution during pregnancy influences fetal growth. This study was designed to examine possible associations between fetal ultrasonic measurements collected from 15,623 scans (13