Health

Early this year, Dhanashree Panchal, a student of Mumbai’s Khalsa college, participated in a unique initiative. She went around her neighbourhood in Charkop to understand what people thought of Mumbai’s health infrastructure. “I expected COVID-19-related concerns to be on top of people’s minds,” Dhanashree says, “but people were far more worried about the city’s overall health infrastructure.”  Dhanashree is a volunteer with Civis, a city-based organisation that works towards facilitating citizen participation in national and local issues. Last month, Civis conducted an online and offline survey to gather feedback on areas they think Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) should prioritise while…

On December 29th, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia rolled out a scheme of supplying dry ration kits in lieu of the mid-day meals in east Delhi’s Mandawali area that falls in Sisodia’s assembly constituency of Patparganj. Each kit contained provisions for six months that included wheat, rice, pulses and oil. “During the lockdown, we tried to provide an allowance in place of the mid-day meals in the students’ bank accounts, but now we are starting distribution of dry-ration among students,” said Kejriwal. Though the scheme will continue till the schools reopen, Sisodia confessed missing mid-day…

Delhi has two groups of poor, who are not getting enough to feed their children. One are those who have a ration card. The other is the migrant worker, with no ration card, as they cannot furnish address proof. Kriti Rani and her two children, a son and daughter, fall in the first type. She has a ration card for her family of four. “But I am not getting anything from the last month against my ration card,” says Kriti. “Till then I used to get rations twice a month—totally 12 kgs of wheat and 8 kgs of rice, for…

Translated by Sandhya Raju கடந்த ஆண்டு முழுவதும் கோவிட் நோயை எதிர்த்து போராடிய சென்னை வாசிகள், உலகின் மற்ற நாடுகளும் இந்தியாவும் பெரிதும் எதிர்பார்க்கும் கோவிட்-19 தடுப்பூசியை எதிர் நோக்கி காத்திருக்கிறார்கள். முதல் கட்ட தடுப்பூசிக்கு முன்னுரிமை குழுக்களை பதிவு செய்வது, மருத்துவமனைகளில் சோதனை ஒட்ட பயிற்சிகள் என, தமிழ்நாட்டில் பல்வேறு பகுதிகள் மற்றும் சென்னையில் பல அரசு குழுக்கள் இந்த மாபெரும் முயற்சியில் ஈடுபட்டுள்ளன. பிற விவரங்கள் இன்னும் முழுவதுமாக வெளிவராவிட்டாலும், சென்னையில் தடுப்பூசி வழங்கும் பணிக்கு தயார் நிலையில் உள்ளதாகவும், மத்திய அரசு அறிவித்தவுடன் தொடங்கப்படும் எனவும் சுகாதார அலுவலர்கள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர். இந்த செயல் முறை குறித்தும், எவ்வாறு செயல்படுத்தப்படும் என்பதையும் அறிந்து கொள்ள, தமிழக அரசின் சுகாதாரத்துறை செயலர் ஜெ ராதாகிருஷ்ணன் மற்றும் சென்னை மாநகராட்சி ஆணையர் ஜி பிரகாஷ் ஆகியவரிடம் உரையாடினோம். சுகாதாரத் துறை செயலர் ஜெ ராதாகிருஷ்ணன் சென்னையில் அனைவருக்கும் தடுப்பூசி வழங்க…

Will Covid-19 vaccination be administered to all at the same time? The Government has identified those who are most vulnerable to the infection and priority will be given to them.  Firstly to the healthcare workers and then to the frontline workers.In the second phase, the vaccine will be administered to those above 50 years and those below 50 years with a history of high blood pressure, heart ailments, diabetes and other comorbid conditions.Later, depending on the need, Covid-19 vaccination will be administered to others in a phased manner. The vaccine has been developed  in a very short time, is it…

The much awaited vaccination programme against COVID-19 will begin all across Karnataka on Saturday, January 16. To start with, four lakh healthcare and frontline workers will get vaccinated against COVID-19 when the process begins. Health minister Dr K Sudhakar informed the media that the state is fully prepared for the mammoth task. Corona warriors including police personnel and rural development department staffers will be administered the vaccine in the initial phase. As many as 16 lakh people will be covered in the initial phase of vaccination across the State, said Sudhakar, through an audio recording released by his office. On…

Just as the rest of the world and our country, Chennai too is waiting with bated breath for the COVID-19 immunisation programme to start, the only ray of hope after a terrible year spent fighting a novel contagion. From conducting dry run exercises in the hospitals to registering priority groups for the first phase of vaccine, multi-disciplinary government committees in Tamil Nadu and Chennai are working on this massive exercise. While the date of commencement of vaccination has not yet been specified, health officials say that the city is adequately prepared to start the exercise immediately as they hear from the…

About five years ago, Manoj Gopalkrishnan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, heard about the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus or MERS-COV outbreak. He read news stories discussing the shortage of testing kits and wondered if pooling as a form of testing, where samples are mixed together in a batch and only tested further if the combined sample tests positive, could be used to accelerate testing. But back then, the idea only remained in his head. In early 2020 as COVID-19 virus raged across the world, Manoj saw that once again there was a shortage of…

The sudden spurt of COVID cases on the IIT-Madras campus last December, shortly after it reopened, has been the subject of close scrutiny in many quarters. Within 18 days of the first two cases detected, the institution recorded 199 cases (179 students, three persons in the quarters, 16 mess workers and a carpenter), leading to a new cluster. At around the same time, many colleges in the city reopened for final year students and research scholars. The outbreak at IIT-Madras has alerted them to the need for revisiting safety protocols and demonstrated why it is important to not let our…

As talks of vaccines acquire a shrill pitch, it is time to look back at some of the essential workers who saw us through the hard days of the lockdown in the past few months. The mortuary and ambulance staff of King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital, one of Mumbai's biggest public hospitals, spoke to Citizen Matters about their life experiences in 2020 - an extraordinary year which was filled with fear and trepidation. But, they could not stop. The 'leader' Senior Mortuary Attendant, Kashinath Raghunath Mugdar, is an old hand. Having witnessed the mortuary overflow after the 1993 communal riots,…