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Remarkable, premature: Director Tata Memorial Hospital on cancer cure
To consider something a miracle cure, you need much larger numbers of patients being treated, being followed up for a much longer time, and results analyzed,’ Dr C S Pramesh tweeted. N Ahmad Earlier this week, a drug called Dostarlimab wiped out rectal cancer in a small group of patients who took it for about six months, making it a major breakthrough that amazed and excited the world. The development has been dubbed “remarkable” by Dr C.S. Pramesh, Director Tata Memorial Hospital; Division of Surgical Oncology in a series of tweets. “A drug called dostarlimab, an anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody...
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Heat waves impacted millions of people
Climate change made a severe rise in heat in India and Pakistan 30 times more likely, says a study Extreme Event Attribution Saadia Azim Two people were killed on May 30 when dust storms and heavy rains lashed various areas of Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) bringing the capital city to a standstill for hours as the storm caused chaos, catching people off guard. While sitting in a cosy office space in faraway Kolkata, a few of us discussed the frequent rains, storms, and heat stress that leave people affected and even dead. A noted professor among us observed that if rare storms be...
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Outcry over racist Monkeypox coverage
The Foreign Press Association, Africa has registered its displeasure against media outlets using images of black people alongside stories of the monkeypox outbreak in North America and the United Kingdom. By N Ahmad At the height of COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) had to advise against naming pathogens for places to “minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people.” Even though by February 11, 2020, the WHO had named the then fast-spreading virus as SARS-CoV-2 and the illness it caused as COVID-19, some politicians, including former US president Do...
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Video warning against eating bitter gourd with ladyfinger gets 88 million FB views
A video claiming that “consuming bitter gourd or white radish after ladyfinger results in food poisoning, skin diseases and even death” is fake news N Ahmad Uploaded on Facebook on May 17, 2020, a fake video warning against eating bitter gourd with ladyfinger has got 88 million views, 1.2 million likes, 0.28 million shares and 11000 comments. The narrator in the video warns that if anyone consumes bitter gourd after eating a ladyfinger, they will get food poisoning and die. In addition, he warns against eating white radish after having a ladyfinger, comparing it to drinking milk with fish whic...
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9 million deaths each year caused by pollution: Lancet report
Ninety two percent of pollution-related deaths, and the greatest burden of pollution’s economic losses, occur in low-income and middle-income countries N Ahmad Pollution is responsible for around 9 million deaths per year, accounting for one in six deaths worldwide, reveals the latest report of The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. Air pollution – both household and ambient air pollution – is generally responsible for the greatest number of deaths, causing 6·7 million deaths while water pollution claims 1·4 million lives. The report also reveals pollution’s deep inequity: 92 percent o...
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Afghan healthcare crumbles under Taliban rule
Sehatmandi Program, the country’s largest health project, is hindered by a lack of adequate funding. The project was previously funded by a grant of $140 million from the International Development Association, and by $425 million from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund. Ragini Varadarajan The ‘heart of Asia,’ Afghanistan, is on the brink of economic collapse since the Taliban took over the country in August last year. Hunger has hit 95 percent of the population with the new government finding it increasingly challenging to decide ‘who to save and who to let die,’ according to a statemen...
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Climate change to have grim health fallout
According to WHO, climate change will cause around 250 000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress between the years 2030 and 2050 Saadia Azim In April 2022, when the world was readjusting to pandemic after-effects, the World Health Organization (WHO) gave an SOS call. It wasn’t about any new variant of the pandemic virus but rather a call for speedy action to combat the climate crisis. WHO declared that the human-induced climate crisis is the “single biggest health threat facing humanity now,”, particularly with increased conflict and fragility. On its...
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Lonely, anxious and locked-down
A peek into the mental health chronicles of four people who availed of psychotherapy during the pandemic – to understand their unique journeys and learnings from the experience. By Jisha Krishnan “Psychotherapy is not advice,” writes clinical psychologist Jorden B. Peterson in his bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. The pandemic gave many of us the opportunity to discover what therapy truly entails – through personal experiences as well as lived experiences of people in our personal and professional circles.In the first year of the COVID-19 outbreak, the global prevalence of an...
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Hypertension control: ‘Village doctors’ in China show the way
In rural China, where blood pressure control rates are poor, especially in rural areas, an intervention led by village doctors is proving successful in addressing the issue. In China, hypertension is a serious public health problem as it has increased almost 400 percent from 1980 to 2015 – from an estimated 59 million to 244.5 million – and has accounted for over 2 million deaths or 24.6 percent of all-cause mortality. A latest study published by the Lancet, the community health workers, or “village doctors,” successfully treated people with uncontrolled high blood pressure in 326 villages in ...
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I am an introvert but lockdown wasn’t for me.
I, along with many others, considered the lockdown a haven for introverts. But soon the piercing arrow of reality burst my bubble. Abeen Shayiq I’m an introvert girlIn a lockdown worldLife fantasticIt’s….wait, is it though? Distancing from others, isolation, masks covering the face, no physical gatherings or parties. What more could an introvert ask for? I like my space to myself to be able to be myself. Although a habit of social interaction was there as much as necessary, my mind would always look for ways to escape. So when lockdown began following onset of Covid-19 pandemic, the idea of li...
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