Tag: Health

In February 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then U.S. president, arrived at the Yalta Conference to negotiate the post-war future of Europe alongside Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The American president appeared visibly exhausted, lethargic and physically frail. Behind those images lay a silent medical crisis. Roosevelt’s blood pressure had reached around 260/150 mm Hg before...

The story so far : On May 16, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, a ‘public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Just ahead of that, the Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Welfare, DRC, and the Uganda Ministry of Health...

India is home to more than 1.4 billion people, thousands of communities, hundreds of languages, and five major language families. Many communities have historically practised endogamy and in some regions, consanguineous marriage. This is both a social and a biological fact with medical consequences. India is not one genetic population. Indians carry a layered inheritance...

The 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Charles Richet “in recognition of his work on anaphylaxis.”His research uncovered a paradoxical reaction in which the body’s defenses, instead of protecting it, could overreact with severe consequences. This discovery became a cornerstone of immunology and the study of allergic diseases. In the late...

The story so far: Following a hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius expedition cruise ship in early May, in which three deaths were reported and at least five others were infected, global attention has once again turned to the group of viruses. Hantavirus had made headlines last year following the passing of Betsy Hackman, the...

Every neonatologist carries the memory of their first encounter with a non-breathing infant. For most of us, that moment remains indelible. The appearance. The quality of silence. The sound that should have been there but wasn’t. The instinctive reach for the resuscitation bag before conscious thought caught up. Over time, we come to understand that...

Wastewater surveillance in Bengaluru closely tracked COVID-19 trends during the first Omicron wave, but later emerged as an important tool in identifying hidden surges that were not fully captured through routine clinical testing, according to researchers studying the city’s sewage-based monitoring network.  A study published in PLOS Global Public Health by researchers from the Indian...

High-income countries are on track to eliminate cervical cancer — preventable through vaccination and screening — by 2048, while low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will see only slight reductions over the next century, according to a study published in The Lancet journal. As a result, the gap between regions will widen dramatically, with women in...

India’s agricultural transformation has long been driven by technological shifts—from the Green Revolution’s high-yielding varieties to the widespread use of synthetic fertilisers. Today, nano urea is being positioned as the next leap: a precision input that promises higher efficiency, lower environmental damage, and reduced dependence on conventional fertilisers. Backed by policy support and fast-tracked approvals,...

When contagions don’t discriminate, why should cures? That question encapsulates a bitter irony of global public health. Countries that contribute the most pathogens to medical research are often the last to benefit from the outcomes. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, where new pathogens often emerge, are expected to...