Heena Sharma Blog

From a continued decline in infant and maternal mortality to inadequate funding for healthcare, from poor nutrition to an acute encephalitis syndrome outbreak, and from success in malaria prevention to below-par performance on leprosy control and tuberculosis elimination, here’s a look at 2019’s biggest health stories. Decrease in maternal mortality, infant mortality Fewer mothers died during childbirth as India’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR)--maternal deaths per 100,000 live births--fell 27% from 167 in 2011-13 to 122 in 2015-17, according to the Sample Registration System bulletin. However, India is still a long way from the Sustainable Development Goal for MMR: a target of 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. Three Indian states have already achieved this--Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. India’s infant mortality rate--deaths per 1,000 live births--also fell from 42 in 2012 to 33 in 2017, as IndiaSpend reported in June 2019. This rate is higher than the glo...

Air pollution, both outside and inside homes, is a silent and deadly killer responsible for the premature deaths of seven million people each year, including 600,000 children, according to a UN Special Rapporteur on environment and human rights. David Boyd, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said that over six billion people, one-third of them children, are regularly inhaling air so polluted that it puts their life, health and well-being at risk. Every hour, 800 people are dying, many after years of suffering from cancer, respiratory illnesses or heart disease directly caused by breathing bad air. Air pollutants are everywhere, largely caused by burning of fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, and heating, as well as from industrial activities, poor waste management and agricultural practice. Women and children, who in many less wealthy countries spend a lot of time at home, are disproportionally affected by indoor air pollutio...

About 87 per cent of Indian drivers and vehicle owners would buy an electric vehicle (EV), if that helped reduce air pollution, according to a new survey. Only 12 per cent would switch to EVs to avoid using petrol and diesel, according to the survey commissioned by Climate Trends, a Bengaluru-based nonprofit, which polled more than 2,000 Indian drivers, owners and those who planned to buy a car. In 2017, India sold about 900,000 EVs, 4 per cent of the volume of diesel and petrol vehicles sold. India, however, sold less than a million electric vehicles–4 per cent of IC engine vehicles sold–in 2017, according to the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), an EV manufacturer’s body. Of these, more than 93 per cent were electric three-wheelers and 6 cent twottwo-wheelers. Read our full coverage on air pollution in India

This is the first time data on air pollution and lifespan has been studied together in order to examine the global variations to find out how they affect the overall life expectancy Health News : Ambient air pollution shortens an average Indian's life by over 1.5 years, say scientists who suggest that better air quality could lead to a significant extension of human lifespan around the world. Researchers said that if PM2.5 concentrations worldwide were limited to the World Health Organization's (WHO) air quality guideline concentration of 10 microgrammes per square cubic metre, the global life expectancy would be on average 0.59 year longer. The benefit of reaching the stringent target would be especially large in countries with the highest current levels of pollution, with approximately 0.81.4 years of additional survival in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. This is the first time data on air pollution and lifespan has been studied...

In 2018 alone, there have been 50 severe storms across 16 Indian states that have led to more than 500 deaths, compared to 22 storms between 2003 and 2017 Current Affairs News : Deadly   dust   storms sweeping over the densely-populated north Indian plains are part of a "new normal" of disruptive weather events worsening the country’s already-lethal   air pollution   and causing disruption in the $2.3-trillion economy. In recent months,   dust   clouds and storms have killed hundreds of people, destroyed thousands of homes and farmers’ crops and led to flight cancellations. The government in New Delhi, a city of more than 20 million people, ordered a halt to construction activities as the airborne sand significantly worsened north India’s air quality, far outside the winter months that usually herald the region’s descent into a months-long toxic haze. "It’s definitely a new normal -- the frequency and intensity of these storms is unpre...