The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Malnourishment is the biggest human rights issue'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 17, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Malnourishment is the biggest human rights issue'

Staff Reporter

Dr. B.C. Roy Doctors' Day award presented

HONOUR: Former Chief Justice of Supreme Court M.N. Venkatachalaiah (left) presenting the Dr. B.C. Roy Doctors' Day award to Professor of Community Medicine M.K. Sudarshan (right) in Bangalore on Sunday. President of Indian Medical Association-Central Health Services Padma is seen. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Bangalore: "Our society is being engulfed with tremendous changes in the form of technological advancements and everything seems possible at the press of a button. But the concern of the people should be to build a caring society," former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court M.N. Venkatachalaiah said here on Sunday.

Speaking after presenting the Dr. B.C. Roy Doctors' Day award at a function organised by the Indian Medical Association-Central Health Services branch, Mr. Venkatachalaiah said India had the burden of diseases.

A large share of the world's illnesses was in this country. "If we had safe drinking water, smokeless kitchens and better preventive medicine, half of our health problems will be solved," he said.

Exemplary work

He presented the award to M.K. Sudarshan, Principal and Professor of Community Medicine at the Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, for his exemplary work in the area of rabies control.

He said the biggest human rights issue confronting the country was the maternal deaths owing to anaemia and malnourished children.

He lauded the efforts of Dr. Sudarshan in treating dog-bite victims and helping in the prevention and control of rabies.

Dr. Sudarshan said animal- bite victims were not getting proper treatment in government hospitals as the new vaccine for rabies, which replaced the sheep brain vaccine being used earlier, was expensive and not affordable.

Many of these victims were getting incomplete treatment, he said. He requested the doctors treating animal-bite victims to administer the rabies vaccine "intra-dermally" as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which would facilitate one-time administration.

A. Nagaraj, president, Indian Medical Association, Bangalore, was present.

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