WHO published its World health statistics report 2025, revealing the deeper health impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on loss of lives, longevity and overall health and well-being. In just two years, between 2019 and 2021, global life expectancy fell by 1.8 years—the largest drop in recent history— reversing a …
Children, in developing nations, face grave risk from air pollution. These are the findings of a report published by, the Washington-based, World Resources Institute ( wri ) . The report studies the risks to children from air pollution in urban outdoors. Nearly a year after the publication of the study, …
politicians and economists look at the latest gross domestic product ( gdp) figures to see how their nations are doing. I look at the infant mortality rate or imr . It is the number of babies out of every 1,000 born who die before they reach their first birthday. For …
A pregnant woman's exposure to chemicals and possibly to alcohol may make the baby prone to leukaemia, reports a new study. Mel Graves and his team from the Institute of Cancer Research, USA, recently isolated DNA from the cells of leukaemia -infected children aged five months to two years. In …
THE southern state of Kerala has performed extraordinarily in the areas of public health, education, family welfare and adult literacy. Its success in areas other than population control are easier to understand, but its miracle in bringing down birth rate below replacement level without any significant advance in economic field …
"Guard well your baby's precious head, Shake, jerk and slap it never, Lest you bruise his brain and twist his mind, or whiplash him dead, forever" writing in the us medical journal Pediatrics in 1974, paediatrician John Caffey was making a point that few have taken. In November 1997, Matthew, …
In Matthew's case, the prosecution submitted that Louise Woodward caused injuries to the baby by shaking him violently and throwing him against a flat surface. The jury at the court in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the US, held the au pair guilty. However, following an appeal amidst conflicting medical evidence, the Middlesex …
THE scars left by industrial pollution have failed to heal in Sumgait, a former industrial city located near Azerbaijan's capital, Baku. Plans to repair the dam age done to the city's ecology and economy have remained on paper due to interference from the industrial lobby and some politicians. Sumgait was …
residents of Tokorozawa near Tokyo are alarmed at a recent finding which says that the death rate for infants in towns located near incinerators is 40 per cent to 70 per cent higher than the average for the prefecture. The report has set off a fear of dioxin, a chemical …
The threat to the foetus seems all pervasive, with even something as seemingly innocuous as a computer display screen being a threat. High levels of radiation (including X-rays, magnetic impulses from electronic devices, like computers, or nuclear radiation), can kill cells and damage organs. At low doses, radiation can initiate …
the womb is, in essence, a miniature universe in creation. Primitive cells and tissues take human form within its sheltered confines. Sheltered? Not so anymore. This placid abode of the yet unborn is under siege. Crossing the physical barrier between a mother and her foetus, noxious environmental pollutants generated by …
For the Nepalese, learning from the kangaroos on how to nurse newborn babies is paying oft. in reducing the infant mortality rate. Mothers are now taught to look after the,ir young ones, especially thosborn wIth low blrth-welght, m a manner sImilar to the kangaroo style of rearing their young 'roos'. …
Recent research conducted by the scientists of the Shirdi Sai Baba Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, and Kasturba Medical College and Hospital, at Manipal in Karnataka, to study the mortality and incidence of cancer in children under 15 in Bombay, reveals that potential years of life are lost by major …
In Angola, 95 children are dying everyday. Not from bullets or mines, but from disease and malnutrition. The United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has come up with this shocking fact. Thousands of Angolan children lost one or both parents during the 19-year-long civil war between Unita rebels and government …
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation nations hold the unenviable distinction of having some of the highest percentages of low birth- weight babies (less than 2.5 kg) in the world. Bangladesh has a score of 50 per cent, Nepal 26 per cent, Pakistan 25 per cent and Sri Lanka …
IF ONE thing is certain in life, it is death. In thinking of death, two things come to mind. First, there is a certain moment at which life ceases. Second, even with the most health-conscious lifestyle, luck in avoiding accidents and freedom from illness, the likelihood of dying increases as …
THE MAN who presided over one of the world's largest head-counting exercises -- the 1991 Indian census -- is soft-spoken Amulya Ratna Nanda, registrar-general and census commissioner. The 1991 census, the fifth in independent India, broke new ground in many ways. When the figures finally come in over the next …
THE average global life expectancy may be an unprecedented 65 years and still climbing, but according to the annual report of the World Health Organisation (WHO), people are not living healthier lives. Over the next half-decade:lone, life expectancy will increase by another four months, thanks to improved water supply and …
