July 30, 2012 Clippings

Is India the leprosy capital of the world?

In 2005, the India had been declared free of leprosy but seven years later the Govt is now dealing with a fresh spate of leprosy cases. According to S.D. Gokhale, president, International Leprosy Union (ILU) (India) of the ,28,474 new leprosy cases detected in the world in 2010, the figure for India stood at 1,26,800, which accounts for an alarming 55.5 per cent.

“If the union and state governments do not take serious note of this fact (the figures quoted were confirmed by union health ministry in a reply given in the Rajya Sabha on March 13, 2012) and initiate effective steps to eradicate leprosy, the problem would become more acute,” he said.

To address the problems being faced by Leprosy Affected Patients (LAP), the ILU has decided to constitute “LAP’s Human Rights Cell” to take their collective and individual grievances to the Human Rights Commission, Mr. Gokhale who is also associated with the movement for the protection of rights of the aged in India, said.

The ILU, which held a three day conference in Pune this week, attended by activists working for LAPs in various States, has prepared a memorandum enlisting 14 demands to redress their grievances, Mr. Gokhale said.

The demands pending with the union and state governments include formulation of a comprehensive socio-economic rehabilitation policy for empowerment of LAPs, uniform pension and its enhancement to Rs. 2000 per month per LAP, and provision of civic amenities to self-settled colonies of LAPs.

Source: http://health.india.com

30.07.2012

Night workers likelier to have heart attacks?

Shift work can dramatically increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, warn researchers. A study of two million people found shift workers are almost 25 percent more likely to suffer, the Daily Mail reported Friday. Night shift workers run the highest risk of 41 percent, says a study published on the British Medical Journal website bmj.com. People working shifts also have higher levels of unhealthy behaviours such as eating junk food, sleeping badly and not exercising, which are linked to heart problems.

But researchers said they took this into account – and the excess risks remained. The latest study is the biggest analysis of shift work and likelihood of vascular problems, including heart attacks, strokes and angina. Shift work has long been known to disrupt the body clock and be linked to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, but the overall impact on cardiovascular health has been unclear. A team of international researchers analysed the results of 34 studies involving 2,011,935 people to investigate whether shift work was associated with major vascular events, the newspaper added.

Source: http://health.india.com

30.07.2012

Honest hearts produce honest actions

Brigham Young