The objective of the present study was to explore how infection rates in study hospitals were affected by an intervention in six intervention hospitals in Gujarat, India. Infection control practices, human resource management, infrastructure, supplies and associated health system factors were...

The maternal mortality ratio of Gujarat was 148/100,000 live births in 2009 (SRS, 2011a) and the infant mortality rate 41/1000 live births in 2011 (SRS, 2011b). The government of Gujarat announced Chiranjeevi Yojana in 2005 to reduce maternal and infant mortality. The scheme was pilot tested in...

Blood is a vital healthcare resource routinely used in a broad range of hospital procedures. It is also a potential vector for harmful, and sometimes fatal, infectious diseases such as HIV, HBV, and HCV. Morbidity and mortality resulting from the transfusion of infected blood have far-reaching...

Chikungunya is a virus spread by the bite of the Aedes mosquito, which recently reemerged as a massive epidemic in the Indian Ocean islands and India. Chikungunya is generally considered self-limiting and has been reported as non-fatal but, since March 2005, one-third of the 770,000 people in...

Background The Chikungunya virus is an alphavirus native to tropical Africa and Asia and is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes. The symptoms of Chikungunya include sudden onset of fever, severe arthralgia, and maculopapular rash. Thirty percent of the population on...

The role of District Public Health Nurses (DPHN) and District Public Health Nurse Officers (DPHNOs) as supervisors of the Public Health nursing and midwifery staff in a district was investigated. Thirteen DPHNs and DPHNOs from six districts selected from six geographic zones of Gujarat were...

Globally, more than 10 million children under 5 years of age, die every year (20 children per minute), most from preventable causes, and almost all in poor countries. Major causes of child death include neonatal disorders (death within 28 days of birth), diarrhea, pneumonia, and measles....

India with its one billion people contributes to about 20% of all maternal deaths in the world. Even though infant mortality has declined in India maternal mortality has remained high at about 540 per 100,000 live births. Recent scientific evidence shows that access and use of high quality...

Following the Safe Motherhood Conference in Nairobi in 1987, there has been a renewed focus on the problem of maternal morality and safe motherhood. Global advocacy led to the starting of new initiatives on safe motherhood in many countries. India launched a major programme in 1992 called the...

Primary Health Care System in India is very large and covers almost all the parts of the country. It has more than 20,000 PHCs and 140,000 Sub-centres spread in more than 400 districts. This system consumes large amount of resources and is the system which provides the services for primary care...