NEW DELHI: India will for the first time introduce a vaccine against Rubella - a viral disease that infects pregnant women and leads to babies being born with cardiac, cerebral, ophthalmic and auditory defects. The Union health ministry so far believed that the disease, also called German Measles, did not affect Indians. Now, the ministry estimates that around 30,000 abnormal children are being born annually because of Rubella. Many experts, however, say the accurate figure would be around two lakh babies.

With no new polio cases being reported for more than a year, India’s experience of containing the dreaded virus is now being replicated in Pakistan. Following the example of its India chapter, the Pakistani arm of Rotary International has adopted several strategies that have proved to be winners in India. In 2011, 198 polio cases were reported in Pakistan and this year 16 cases have been reported so far, and that too excluding the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

MUMBAI: In view of the growing number of mobile towers in villages, Maharashtra government will formulate guidelines for rural areas after studying effects of radiation. The urban development department has prepared a set of guidelines for which views and opinions of rural development, public health, medical education department were sought.

There have been complaints that people living in the vicinity of radio magnetic waves generated from the mobile towers are facing health hazards.

The Annual Plan for Punjab for the current fiscal has been finalised at Rs.14,000 crore at a meeting here between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Initiating the discussions on Punjab's Plan performance, Mr. Ahluwalia lauded the State Government's efforts towards improving the health of the State's economy as also initiatives targeted at providing a boost to sectors such as health and education.

KOLKATA, 14 MAY: In an initiative to combat high rates of malnutrition in children of West Bengal, GlaxoSmithKline consumer healthcare have partnered with Horlicks and the Child In Need Institute (CINI) to launch ‘Aahar Abhiyan'. One rupee from every large pack of Horlicks sold in West Bengal will be contributed to the initiative, and the funds will be distributed by CINI to various CINI-administered nutrition centres in the state.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in a maiden initiative has invited experts and users to contribute online to the development of its next version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) capturing mortality and morbidity data. The world’s standard tool provides a picture of the general health of countries and populations and its 11th version is now being developed through an innovative, collaborative process to be released in 2015.

Planning Commission nod for cancer hospital in Malwa; water-logging, depleting water table to be dealt with. The Planning Commission today approved an annual plan outlay of Rs 14,000 crore for Punjab for the 2012-13 financial year. The amount has been hiked by 10 per cent as compared to last year's outlay of Rs 12,800 crore.