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The government on Thursday told Parliament that global air quality rankings cited by various organisations are not conducted by any official authority and that the World Health Organisation's (WHO) air quality guidelines serve only as advisory values, not binding standards. Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha on India's position in global indices such as IQAir's World Air Quality Ranking, the WHO Global Air Quality Database, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) metrics, the Environment Ministry said no official country-wise pollution ranking is carried out worldwide. Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh said the WHO's guidelines are meant to help countries set their own standards, taking into account geography, environmental conditions, background levels and national circumstances. He said India has already notified its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for 12 pollutants to protect public health and ..
A study funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has demonstrated the impact of improved nutrition in reducing tuberculosis cases and fatalities, with the WHO incorporating the findings into updated global guidance on controlling the disease. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of nutritional supplementation on tuberculosis incidence in household contacts of adults with microbiologically confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis. Household contacts of 2,800 patients with microbiologically confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis across 28 units of the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme in four districts of Jharkhand were enrolled for this field-based, open-label, cluster-randomised controlled trial. The study, published by The Lancet, said that in India, tuberculosis and undernutrition are syndemic, with a high burden of TB coexisting with a high burden of undernutrition in patients and in the population. In a post on X on August 7, ICMR said the WHO has recogni
More than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year about the same number as the year before according to UN health officials. Nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children. In their annual estimate of global vaccine coverage, released Tuesday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said about 89 per cent of children under one year old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023. About 85 per cent completed the three-dose series, up from 84 per cent in 2023. Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international aid this year will make it more difficult to reduce the number of unprotected children. In January, US President Trump withdrew the country from the WHO, froze nearly all humanitarian aid and later moved to close the US AID Agency. And last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it was pulling the billions of dollars the US had previously ...