Seven children with severe spinal deformities underwent successful surgeries at the Government Spine Institute in Ahmedabad Civil Hospital during the second Indo-American Spine Surgery Camp.

Two new measles cases linked to overseas travel and from the same household have been detected in Auckland, three weeks after New Zealand declared an earlier outbreak over.

Locations of interest include Singapore Airlines flight SQ281, which arrived in Auckland on February 17, Auckland International Airport, and the Waitakere Hospital's emergency department waiting room, Health New Zealand said in a statement on Tuesday.

Even though experts reckon that childhood cancer survival rates in wealthy nations is over 80 per cent, it drops to below 30 per cent in low and middle-income nations like Pakistan largely due to delay in recognising symptoms, lack of quality supportive care and trained specialists, limited access to specialised treatment and treatment abandonment, a report has detailed.

In a significant development, organ transplants have seen a 4-fold increase in the country -- from less than 5,000 in 2013 to nearly 20,000 in 2025, according to the government.

Moreover, nearly 18 per cent of transplants are currently being performed with organs donated from deceased donors.

New All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) should progressively establish world standards in patient care and medical education, while preserving the institutional ethos associated with the AIIMS system, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda said on Friday.

Addressing the ‘Leadership Conclave’ for the Presidents and the Executive Directors of new AIIMS, convened by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the minister emphasised that the conclave is both contextual and relevant in the present phase of expansion of the AIIMS network.

AI is not about replacing clinicians; it is about giving time back to them, time to think, time to connect and time to care, according to industry leaders.

Roy Jakobs, CEO, Philips, positioned healthcare as the sector where AI could have the greatest human impact.

Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said that sectors such as healthcare, education, deep research and medical sciences are set to grow rapidly with the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit here, he said AI is no longer just a technology trend but is becoming a key driver of change across industries.

Congress leader Ashok Gehlot has demanded the constitution of a high-level scientific committee to investigate the increasing cases of cardiac arrests and sudden deaths among young people and children in Rajasthan.

Gehlot, former Rajasthan Chief Minister, said the concern raised by Leader of the Opposition Tikaram Jully and other MLAs in the Assembly regarding the alarming trend is extremely serious.

Pakistan is facing the double burden of malnutrition and obesity, intensifying pressures on the national health system and public well-being, a new report has lamented, adding that widespread consumption of nutrient-deficient foods has compounded Pakistan’s long-standing malnutrition crisis, hitting women and children the hardest.

According to a report in Business Recorder, a recent assessment by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) revealed the deep structural distortions within the country’s food system that are eroding nutrition, and by extension weakening public health and long-term development outcomes.

Around 10,000 children are diagnosed with cancer in Pakistan each year, but fewer than 30 per cent of them survive due to delayed diagnosis, limited treatment facilities and financial difficulties, health experts stated at an awareness session, local media reported on Monday.

In a major step to strengthen cancer care in India, the government has announced the setting up of Day Care Cancer Centres (DCCCs) in district hospitals across the country over the next three years, according to the official statement.

The decision was announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, with 200 centres planned to be established during 2025-26 itself.

The move aims to bring chemotherapy services closer to patients’ homes and reduce the pressure on big tertiary hospitals.

The five-day India-Sri Lanka workshop on Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a significant strategic milestone in bilateral healthcare diplomacy and HTA knowledge exchange, underscoring India's commitment to supporting regional health initiatives, senior government officials have said.

The knowledge exchange workshop on HTA formally commenced at the Sushma Swaraj Bhawan here, hosted by the Department of Health Research (DHR), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs.

The Gujarat Health Department will launch the third round of the Mass Drug Administration (MDA) programme against filariasis from February 10 to 12, covering four talukas across Bharuch, Narmada and Dang districts, officials said on Monday.

The campaign aims to eliminate elephantiasis, also known as lymphatic filariasis, in line with the Central Government’s nationwide target to eradicate the disease by 2030.

The MDA drive will be conducted in Netrang taluka of Bharuch district, Nandod and Dediapada talukas of Narmada district, and Waghai taluka of Dang district.

The total number of measles cases in Mongolia has increased to 14,123, the country's National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said on Monday.

The majority of new measles infections were among school-age children who had had only one shot of the measles vaccine, the NCCD said in a statement.

In view of this, the NCCD advised parents to protect their children from a potentially severe disease by getting them two doses of the measles vaccine.

South Africa has released its first locally produced vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in nearly two decades, the country's Department of Agriculture said.

At a press briefing, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen, together with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the vaccine developer and producer, announced the release of an initial batch of 12,900 vaccine doses, with production expected to rise to 20,000 doses per week by March.

The ARC said plans are being prepared to distribute the vaccine to herds across the country.

A total of 2 lakh Anganwadi Centres across the country have been approved for upgradation as Saksham Anganwadis with improved nutrition and early childhood care and education till December last year, Annpurna Devi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development, told the Parliament on Friday.

Under Mission Poshan 2.0, two lakh Anganwadi Centres located in Government buildings at 40,000 AWCs per year are strengthened as Saksham Anganwadis.

As tuberculosis (TB) continues as the deadliest infectious cause of deaths globally, a new study has shown that artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled digital stethoscopes can help fill critical screening gaps, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

Amid several claims of vaccination and reduced fertility, a study of nearly 60,000 women showed that the Covid vaccine played no role in a decrease in childbirth.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, unfounded rumours have circulated, especially on social media, alleging that vaccination impairs chances of becoming pregnant.

In the later stages of the pandemic, there was a decrease in the number of children born in some countries, including Sweden. This raised the question of whether this could be due to the new vaccines.

Chennai is on high alert after more than 1,500 crows were found dead across several neighbourhoods in recent days, prompting the Central government to direct the Tamil Nadu administration to strengthen surveillance and disease-control measures following confirmation of bird flu.

The sudden deaths were reported from multiple parts of the city, including Adyar, Gandhi Nagar, Pallikaranai, Velachery, Thiruvanmiyur, the East Coast Road, and the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR).

Climate change and industrial pollution are worsening the healthcare crisis in Bangladesh, according to a media report.

The Irish Times reported that despite emitting only about 0.3 per cent of global CO2 emissions from combustible fuels, the air quality in Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka, regularly ranks among the worst in the world.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have developed a simpler and more efficient method to recover immune cells grown in the lab for T-cell–based cancer therapies.

In immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell, T-cells (a type of immune cell) are taken from a patient’s blood and modified in large numbers in the laboratory and infused back into the patient’s bloodstream to help fight cancer.

A world-first Australian trial has found that a simple fingerstick test for hepatitis B DNA is as accurate as standard lab testing, paving the way for wider access in remote and resource-limited settings.

Published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, the study showed that the point-of-care test can deliver results within an hour and be performed in decentralised clinics, news agency reported.

Ayushman Arogya Mandirs is strengthening the fight against cancer in India, said Union Health Minister JP Nadda on World Cancer Day on Wednesday.

World Cancer Day is observed every year on February 4 to raise awareness about cancer and the advancements in technology to fight it.

As per ICMR’s National Cancer Registry estimates, India recorded over 15.3 lakh new cancer cases in 2024 and around 8–8.7 lakh deaths, against a global burden of 20 million new cases and 9.7 million deaths in 2022.

Up to four in 10 or 7.1 million cancer cases worldwide could be prevented, according to a new global analysis from the World Health Organization (WHO) and its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on Wednesday.

The study, released on World Cancer Day on February 4, identified tobacco as the leading preventable cause of cancer globally, responsible for 15 per cent of all new cancer cases.

It also found, for the first time, that nine cancer-causing infections are responsible for about 10 per cent of cancer cases.

Scientists in Australia have mapped the "neighbourhoods" of lung cancer cells and found that cell metabolism plays a key role in determining how patients respond to immunotherapy.

Researchers from the University of Queensland's (UQ) Frazer Institute studied cell interactions at cellular resolution in non-small cell lung carcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer, to better understand why some patients don't respond to immunotherapy treatment, news agency reported.

Tamil Nadu has crossed a critical public health threshold, registering more than one lakh new cancer cases in a single year for the first time. The latest figures for 2025, according to data submitted in Parliament by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, show 1,00,097 fresh cases in the state, underscoring a sharp and sustained rise in incidence and raising concerns among health authorities about prevention, early detection, and treatment capacity.

Even after three decades of aggressive eradication campaigns, Pakistan’s polio woes continue amid public mistrust and logistical gaps, according to a media report.

Pakistan first launched the anti-polio campaign in 1994. Yet, over the last 31 years, the country recorded a staggering total of 14,206 confirmed polio cases, The Express Tribune’s T-Magazine reported.

Amid a rapidly ageing population in India, experts on Tuesday stressed the need for a home-based, community-led and integrated elder care model to boost geriatric care in the country.

Speaking at an event held in the national capital, the health experts also discussed the growing challenges confronting the country’s elderly population and the urgent need for more responsive and inclusive approaches to geriatric care.

Gujarat has recorded a major achievement in public healthcare by completing large-scale cancer screening across the state over the past four years, strengthening early detection and access to treatment ahead of World Cancer Day. Health department figures show that more than three crore people above the age of 30 have been screened for oral cancer, while over 1.6 crore women have undergone breast cancer screening and more than 82 lakh women have been screened for cervical cancer.

Slashing global aid, particularly by the US and European countries, will reverse decades of progress in fighting diseases, and lead to 22.6 million additional deaths in people of all age groups, including children under five years of age, by 2030, warned a new study published in The Lancet Global Health on Tuesday.

The peer-reviewed study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), in Spain, showed that the additional deaths will be across 93 low- and middle- income countries, including India. The figures also include 5.4 million children under the age of five.

Pakistan on Monday launched its first nationwide polio vaccination campaign of 2026, aiming to vaccinate more than 45 million children from February 2 to February 8, the National Emergency Operations Centre said.

Myanmar has intensified health screening and surveillance at Yangon International Airport to prevent the possible entry of the Nipah virus, the state-owned daily The Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Monday.

In view of the ongoing outbreak of the Nipah virus in India's West Bengal state, special attention is being given to travelers arriving from India, with health checks focusing on fever and other Nipah-related symptoms, the report said, citing the Ministry of Health.

From February 1, the government is bringing a new tax structure for cigarettes, tobacco products and pan masala, aiming to tighten regulation and keep tax levels high on these so-called ‘sin goods’.

An additional excise duty will now be charged on cigarettes and tobacco products, along with a new health and national security cess on pan masala.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, on Friday observed AIIMS Research Day 2026, showcasing innovation, artificial intelligence (AI) and national health priorities.

The scientific programme, held at the Jawaharlal Auditorium, brought together faculty members, researchers, clinicians, and students from across disciplines who reaffirmed their commitment to innovation, translational science, and nationally relevant health research.

The risk of transmission of Nipah virus remains low, and there is no need for any travel or trade restrictions, said the World Health Organisation, noting that it is closely monitoring the deadly virus cases in India.

In its latest Epidemiological Bulletin, the global health body reported two cases of Nipah virus in 25-year-old nurses -- a woman and a man -- working at the same private hospital in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.