It was a chance meeting between the Calcutta-based gastroenterologist, Dr Abhijit Chowdhury and Lillian Lou- a California based scientist that paved the way for a Rs 60 crore, 100 bed superspecialty hospital in Bengal. The meeting took place in a 14th century building in Barcelona, but its benefits would be enjoyed by many Indians in […]
Doctors in India recently removed an 800 gram tumour from a three-year-old Afghan boy’s chest. The surgery has given the child a new lease of life. As per the doctors of Delhi’s Jeewan Hospital who carried out the surgery, the tumor had compressed the whole right lung of the boy who weighed only 10 kilograms. […]
Dr Jack Preger has been working to serve the poor who live on the streets of Kolkata for decades. He is also someone who has fought child trafficking- something that has brought him a fair amount of suffering. For his selfless contribution, the 86 year old was awarded the ‘Philanthropist of the Year’ award at […]
Badrilal Meena of Rajasthan is someone who could well be called a human pin cushion. He is a 56 year old railway employee. But what’s baffling the doctors is the fact that he has 75 stationery pins embedded deep under the skin of his neck, legs, forearms. The curious fact is that no visible marks […]
Mycobacterium indicus pranii(MIP) is the name of the organism which drives the world’s first leprosy vaccine. The vaccine was developed in India. Last week saw it being launched as a pilot project. And the ‘pranii’ in the name comes from the name Gursharan Prasad Talwar- who is widely considered as the father of immunology in […]
A study conducted across India found that over 50% of Indian physicians have uncontrolled hypertension or high blood pressure even though they take hypertensive medicines, due to high stress levels. In India, hypertension is among the most common lifestyle disease. One in three Indian adults suffer from it. The study shows that it’s equally widespread […]
A recent report in the Economic Times is a fascinating read for the links it investigates between the colour blue and cancer in a colony. Some of the high points from the article are given here. Alok Rathore is a 16 year old school student whose right hand had to be severed to prevent cancer […]
The baby weighed just 470 grams at birth. He was only the size of a palm, and was born prematurely after 28 weeks of pregnancy. The baby’s eyes hadn’t opened, neither were his lungs developed. His skin looked like parchment paper that was just too fragile and delicate to the touch. And he also had […]
According to a State health official, at least 213 HIV-infected women gave birth to healthy babies in govt-run hospitals in Chhattisgarh in 2016-17. “The health department is committed to secure the child from infection in the womb of a HIV-positive mother,”said the state’s health services director, R. Prassanna to PTI. He said that the multi-medicine […]
Dominic D’Souza of Goa is considered as ‘patient zero’ of HIV in India. The first of the patients to face societal vileness reserved for those with the disease, his was a case that would change HIV treatment in India for good. No love on Valentine’s Day In 1989, Dominic was 29 years old. It was […]