New Delhi: There has been a six-fold increase in the number of antibiotics being popped by Indians. This includes the retail sale of carbapenems — powerful class IV antibiotics, typically used as a “last resort” to treat serious infections caused by multi-drug resistant, gramnegative pathogens. Research by the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, Washington DC, has found that retail sale of carbapenems increased six times — from 0.21 units per million in 2005 to 1.23 in 2010, raising serious fears of resistance to these drugs.

First the good news — nearly 1.41 lakh fewer children died in India in 2010 before reaching their fifth birthday than in 2009. This means nearly 388 fewer children aged 0-4 years died every day in India. But before you start celebrating, consider this — 15.41 lakh children died in India in 2010 under the age of five. What’s worse, more females died than their male counterparts. While India in 2010 saw over 7.43 lakh male children aged 0-4 years die, the number for female children stood at 8.06 lakh.

Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra together accounted for 25% of all cancer deaths in India last year.
While Delhi recorded lowest cancer mortalities (less than 9,000), West Bengal recorded the fourth highest cancer deaths (40,199), followed by Tamil Nadu (39,127).
India officially recorded over half a million deaths due to cancer in 2011 — 5.35 lakh as against 5.24 lakh in 2010. UP recorded 89,224 deaths due to cancer, while Maharashtra saw 50,989 fatalities.

Popcorn — your regular partner every time you hit a movie theatre — seems to be the latest “nutritional gold nugget”.

After milk, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has found that contamination is, in fact, quite common among other food items across the country. In Rajasthan, adulteration rate is as high as 23%, the study has found.

In 2010, the FSSAI picked up over 1.17 lakh samples of food articles and tested them. Around 13% of the samples overall were found to be adulterated.

India will not allow home testing for HIV. The country's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) is against allowing finger pricks or mouth swabs to be used by individuals to know their HIV status.

A variety of tests are now available which can produce results in 1-20 minutes. The cost of these tests are also low. However, NACO says its policy is clear - testing will have to accompany pre-testing and post-result counselling. "Self-testing is against Indian national treatment guidelines. We don't allow it," a NACO official said.

Transmission of the deadly H1N1 swine flu virus was the fastest in the national capital, while the infection was most fatal in Maharashtra.
The first-of-its-kind analysis to understand the transmission dynamics of the pandemic influenza that hit India has found that the doubling time (time span in which the number of people infected doubled) was the lowest in Delhi (8.89 days), and highest in Rajasthan (25.67 days).
The doubling time was as low as 9.12 days in Tamil Nadu and 9.24 days in Maharashtra, two of the states worst-hit by the flu.

The sacred sindoor (vermilion), a symbol of married Hindu women and also liberally used at Hindu shrines, will have to comply with safety standards.
The Drug Technical Advisory Board has decided to regulate the sale and quality of sindoor. It is being brought under Schedule S of the Drugs and Cosmetics rules, making it a “cosmetic”.

Families of those who died during clinical trials last year have finally been paid compensation by the pharmaceutical companies which owned these drugs. According to data available with drug controller general of India (DCGI), 22 people lost their lives in 2010 because of the drugs that were being tested on them.

India is going all out to monitor global ban on drugs.