After eradication: India’s post-polio problem

0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science, Poliomyelitis
Polio survivors performing Sufi dance on wheelchairs. Photo Credit: Ability Unlimited

By Neena Bhandari

New Delhi, 31.03.2014 (BMJ): As India celebrates three years of being polio free there is an urgent need to invest in medical care for the thousands of people who made the most of life after having had poliomyelitis but are now facing the debilitating post-polio syndrome (PPS).1 2 PPS describes the sudden onset of muscle weakness or fatigability in people with a history of acute paralytic poliomyelitis, usually occurring 15 to 40 years later.3 Many thousands of polio survivors experience muscle weakness, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, intolerance to cold, and difficulties in sleeping, breathing, or swallowing.

The March of Dimes, an international non-profit agency based in the United States and founded in 1938 by President and polio survivor Franklin D Roosevelt, warned in 2001 that as many as 20 million people worldwide are at risk of PPS, which could leave them using wheelchairs or ventilators for the rest of their lives.

After eradication_ India’s post-polio problem _ BMJ

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Women truckers making a mark in resource-rich Australia

0 Comments read Business and Trade, Gender
Trucks parked at a mine near Karratha in Western Australia. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Karratha (Western Australia), 15.11.2013: Growing up on a farm, Rosalie Hann would watch the haul trucks come in to collect wool bales and livestock. She would dream of one day driving these mammoth lorries herself. Today, the 39-year-old is an owner operator of a truck, subcontracting to Toll Energy in Dampier in the resource rich Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Rosalie is delighted to own and operate her own equipment in what is otherwise a very male-dominated industry. While women comprise about 50 per cent of the Australian population, they only make up around 10 per cent of the mine workforce. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Labour Force Estimates for February 2010 quarter, there were 23,260 women employed in the mining industry and 4,483 of them were truck drivers.

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The clock is ticking on koala conservation

0 Comments read Environment & Development
Koalas at the Wild Life Sydney Zoo at Darling Harbour. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 30.04.2013 (IPS and The Guardian): Australia’s iconic marsupial is under threat. Formerly hunted almost to extinction for their woolly coats, koalas are now struggling to survive as habitat destruction caused by droughts and bushfires, land clearing for agriculture and logging, and mining and urban development conspire against this cuddly creature.

In the past 20 years, the koala population has significantly declined, dropping by 40 percent in the state of Queensland and by a third in New South Wales (NSW). The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) estimates that there are between 45,000 and 90,000 koalas left in the wild.

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