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US aid freeze leaves TB survivors in India 'high and dry' | Context by TRF

A TB survivor advocates for patient services in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu in July 2023. REACH/Handout via Thomson Reuters Foundation
India has world's highest number of TB cases
Government targets eradication this year
Study shows infections, deaths may soar without US funding

AHMEDABAD, India - Sudeshwar Singh, a tuberculosis survivor and health activist, used to coordinate and mentor about 800 advocates in India's eastern state of Bihar, part of a grassroots network that plays a pivotal part in...
Cancerworld Magazine | •

How Indian centres slashed treatment drop-out rates in childhood cancer | Cancerworld Magazine

Dedicated support from day 1 for families of children diagnosed with cancer has resulted in a reduction in children failing to complete their course of treatment from one in five to one in fifty. The result has been a significant drop in mortality at centres running the programme, writes Swagata Yadavar.

Just 15 years ago, the odds were against children with cancer ever completing their treatment – especially if they happened to be female. Data from India’s largest cancer centre, Tata Memorial...
BehanBox •

When Women Have Cancer: Navigating Families, Society and Medicine - BehanBox

This story was supported by the Pulitzer CenterThere is not a dull moment when Tulasi Singh is around. She makes sure that the women’s hall on the fifth floor of the Gadge Maharaj Dharamshala, a subsidised hostel for cancer patients close to Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai, is filled with laughter and chatter.Tulasi is from Jalpaiguri in West Bengal. She has barely completed the fourth grade in school. “I was good at many things, studying was not one of them,” she tells me and goads me to have cha...
BehanBox •

Lack of Knowledge, Agency & Finances: Why Women With Cancer Suffer More - BehanBox

The eldest of four daughters and one son, Amrita was married off at 13. “There were three more [sisters] after me so my parents wanted to get married early,” she told me. From a small village in Dumka, Jharkhand, Amrita moved to Delhi, 1365 km away. She had only completed the eighth grade, there was no time to have an aspiration for herself, and within a year she gave birth to her son, Mohit, and later had two daughters. Her husband worked as a parking assistant, Amrita stayed at home taking car...
BehanBox •

Ignorance and Apathy: Why One Indian Woman Dies of Cervical Cancer Every 7 mins

This story is supported by the Pulitzer Center


The flow of patients is incessant at the outpatient departments of the Gujarat Cancer Research Institute (GCRI). The tertiary cancer centre caters to 25,000 patients annually from across the state, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and the treatment is mostly subsidised under various government schemes.

In the gynaecology OPD, on the ground floor, nurses call out patients and a team of two doctors examine the patient. Between seeing patients, Chetna
Cancerworld Magazine | •

In a remote corner of India, a cancer centre is showing what can be achieved with technology and compassion | Cancerworld Magazine

In a remote, inaccessible and hilly area of the north-east Indian state of Assam, local residents of the Cachar district came together twenty years ago to form the Cachar Cancer Society for cancer prevention, detection and treatment. They felt a cancer centre was desperately needed in their region, as the nearest centre was in Assam’s premier city, Guwahati, which was 350 km away, and in those days took 20 hours to reach. At that time, most of the locals who developed cancer did not bother tryin
Cancerworld Magazine | •

Pooled procurement of drugs saves millions for Indian cancer centres | Cancerworld Magazine

A pilot project pooling the procurement of cancer drugs has led to cancer institutes in India saving over USS 116 million – an 82% average reduction on the drugs’ reference prices.

The results of the pilot project, led by Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai and published in the Bulletin of World Health Organisation, show how 23 cancer centres which are part of India’s National Cancer Grid have pooled their purchase of 40 high-value cancer and supportive care drugs, normally worth US$197 million.
The Guardian •

Air pollution raises risk of type 2 diabetes, says landmark Indian study

Inhaling polluted air increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, the first study of its kind in India has found. Research conducted in Delhi and the southern city of Chennai found that inhaling air with high amounts of PM2.5 particles led to high blood sugar levels and increased type 2 diabetes incidence.

When inhaled, PM2.5 particles – which are 30 times thinner than a strand of hair – can enter the bloodstream and cause several respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

The study is part of ongoin
Cancerworld Magazine | •

Quality care, free of charge, and closer to home: expanding access to cancer services in India | Cancerworld Magazine

Rahul Jain and his mother Shashi were in Pune – 1,000 km from their home in Ashoknagar, in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh – when they were told there was no hope. They had undertaken the long journey together to get treatment for Shashi’s breast cancer. But after her primary tumour was removed, they were informed that the cancer had spread and was now stage IV. So Rahul brought her home.

He’d been advised that palliative chemotherapy could relieve some of her symptoms and slow disease
mint •

Why are young doctors feeling burnt out?

New Delhi: In his first year as a surgical resident doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, in 2017, Dr Adarsh Pratap Singh remembers being told, “ Jahaan time mile so jao, kha lo aur naha lo (Sleep, eat and take a bath whenever you find the time)."

He recalls sleeping all night in the hospital ward, waking up at 5am, rushing to the hostel for a quick bath and returning to the ward at 7.30am. This was the routine, three-four times a week, for postgraduate resid
Indiaspend •

Karnataka’s Muktha Centres Show How Govt Hospitals Can Support Domestic Violence Survivors

Chikkaballapur, Bengaluru, Karnataka: Twenty-eight-year-old Amruta smiled as she showed us the grainy photo of her two sons that she had set as the wallpaper on her phone.


Three years earlier, Amruta was pregnant with her second child. Her second marriage was failing; her in-laws and her husband tortured her, did not allow her to step out of the house or use the phone, while her natal family refused to help. Frustrated and losing the will to live, she consumed poison, and was admitted to the
Cancerworld Magazine | •

Delivering cervical cancer screening across India: the plan… and the practice | Cancerworld Magazine

Gynaecologist Shalini Singh remembers the Pap smears she carried out until around twenty years ago, when she was working at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences, in New Delhi. “We had about 15 Pap smear bottles per day in the outpatient department, which were sent by the pathology department, and the Pap test was done for symptomatic women or those undergoing major surgery,” she says.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences is the premier tertiary care hospital in the cou
Scroll.in •

In filing domestic violence cases, women face uphill battle against society and systemic pressures

Every third married woman in India faces spousal violence but only one in 10 seeks any help, says a 2020 study published in the BMJ. Worse, only 1% reported it to the police or healthcare personnel.

The number of women seeking help for domestic violence has declined from 24% to 14% in the decade to 2015, according to the National Family Health Survey-4, the latest available dataset. In these cases, women mostly sought help from their own families (65%), their husbands’ family (29%), friends (15
Scroll.in •

In rural Gujarat, ASHAs play key role in identifying and reaching out to domestic abuse survivors

“A pregnant woman has been hit in the stomach by her husband; she is bleeding. There are also marks of assault on her legs and hands. She may lose her baby and or even her own life because she is anaemic.”

This is an imagined case study, but in India, where one in three women report domestic violence, it could be very real. At a training session in the Sidhpur block of Gujarat’s Patan district, this fictional survivor experience is being used to teach rural health workers how to deal with domes
BehanBox •

Gujarat’s Rural Hospitals Become Support Centres For Domestic Violence Survivors

A survivor in a green salwar kameez with her infant son asleep in her lap, says she is at the end of her tether. She has returned to her mother’s home because her husband has been physically violent towards her and her children. But her son is ill and she is struggling to find the money for treatment. She has filed for the maintenance for her two children [under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005] but the case has yet to be heard. She is so desperate for a solution she is c
Cancerworld Magazine | •

Careers of women in oncology hit by Covid-19 pandemic | Cancerworld Magazine

The pandemic has seen the careers of female physicians working in oncology suffer as they have taken on more domestic responsibilities during lockdowns. Recent studies have indicated the trend may be global and long lasting.

A new paper published in JCO Global Oncology showed that the pandemic had an adverse impact on careers on female physicians in India. A survey of more than 1000 Indian physicians found that 90% of female physicians reported an increase in domestic responsibilities during th
Cancerworld Magazine | •

Decolonising cancer research: why it matters, what can be done | Cancerworld Magazine

When cancer epidemiologist and medical doctor Nirmala Bhoo-Pathy returned to Malaysia in 2011 after completing her PhD in cancer epidemiology in the Netherlands, she hadn’t expected the move to negatively affect her research prospects. As it turns out, she was wrong. Getting funding for cancer research and getting those results published, she soon discovered, was much harder for researchers based in Malaysia than in the Netherlands.

There were several hurdles: domestic funding was scarce for ep
Insider •

Doctors in India are reporting COVID-19 patients with gangrene, hearing loss, and diarrhea — but there's not enough data to prove they're caused by the Delta variant

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Doctors in India claim that the highly infectious Delta variant could cause unusual symptoms such as gangrene and hearing loss, which they say are becoming more common in COVID-1
Scroll.in •

Like US and UK, India must prioritise pregnant women for Covid-19 vaccination

Kalyani Agrahari, 27, an assistant teacher, was assigned to poll duty in eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur block during the April 2021 state panchayat elections. Eight months pregnant with her first child and advised bed-rest by her doctor, Kalyani asked to be excused from the 12-hour duty at the poll booth that was 32 km from her home.

The district administration not only turned down her application but also threatened her with disciplinary action if she did not report for work. Kalyani, who had
The Verge •

Vaccine waivers alone can’t solve India’s vaccine crisis

India never should have been in this position. The government is currently engaged in international disputes over vaccine waivers and intellectual property rights, while a horrific and record-setting surge of COVID-19 cases continues to devastate its population. The country’s recent vaccine policies — opening vaccination for all above the age of 18 while reeling under severe shortage, allowing the private sectors to sell the vaccine at market prices, and leaving the states to procure vaccines th
Insider •

Indian politicians encouraged a return to normal as COVID-19 cases fell. Now hospitals are overwhelmed as a 'double mutant' variant takes hold — but mass gatherings continue.


• A second COVID-19 wave is devastating India, where a new "double mutant" virus variant emerged.
• Insider spoke with people on the ground and experts about the threat and ways to address it.
• Politicians so far have largely been unwilling or unable to apply strict restrictions.

Hospitals in India are overwhelmed as the country grapples with a second wave of COVID-19.

There is a severe shortage of beds, the drug remdesivir, and medical oxygen. Desperate patients have been traveling hundreds
Scroll.in •

Not far from Delhi, India’s most ‘backward’ district lags in Covid-19 vaccination too

Meena Kumari, 29, does not speak about Covid-19 vaccination to the people she meets during her work as an accredited social health activist worker in Bibipur village in Nuh district in southern Haryana. “Villagers threatened me that if I insisted on the vaccination, they would stop even routine vaccinations for their children,” she told IndiaSpend.

Not a single person over the age of 60 years had been vaccinated in Bibipur, said Meena Kumari, by the time we visited in late March, more than two
Cancerworld Magazine | •

Indian cancer care struggles with pandemic of late diagnoses and delayed treatments | Cancerworld Magazine

An average cancer patient in India usually seeks treatment three months after the symptoms appear. Due to lack of transport facilities and fear of contracting coronavirus, the time to seek care during the COVID-19 pandemic has doubled, with patients finally going to see a doctor six to seven months after the appearance of symptoms, affecting their prognosis.

Roop Kumar is one of those who has paid the price. It took almost eight months for him to start treatment after the first appearance of sy
Al Jazeera •

2020 saw surge in ‘harassment’ of Kashmir journalists

Journalists have been attacked and press freedom curtailed since India stripped Kashmir of its special status last year.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – For young Kashmiri photojournalist, Masrat Zahra, the fear of getting arrested or summoned by police always lurks around. She was charged under anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), in April this year for posting “anti-national” content on social media.

The case, says 26-year-old Zahra, “is like a sword hanging
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