Health insurance a predominant medium for achieving universal healthcare in India ? A farfetched dream?

In India, there are two kinds of insurances - Social Health Insurance (e.g. Employees State Insurance Scheme) & Voluntary Health Insurance. Even after years of grappling with health insurances, 71% of the health care costs are borne by the households. CGHS (Central Government Health Scheme), ESI (Employees State Insurance) and private insurance providers are major participants but they often ignore the population that needs the healthcare insurance the most.

Self Help Groups and NGOs extend a number of Community based health insurance schemes. However, this covers only less than 1% of the country?s population. ESIS and CGHS taken together constituted 41% of total spending on insurance. The government has rolled out various schemes like RSBY (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna) that cover population in informal sector but only the BPL (Below Poverty Line) and marginalized population. Still a large non-formal sector is there that is above the BPL but in dire need of health insurance as they are most susceptible to catastrophic health expenditures and fall below poverty line due to health expenditures.

Emerging Themes In Virology

The importance of the virology field has been increasing in number of academic publications and has never been more exciting as a research area and more relevant to human health or present in the media due to the economic impact (animal loss) and ecological issues regarding the recent outbreaks impacted by viral agents. There is high number of well-established virology journals already in existence and I must confess I caught myself reflecting on the question if really need another journal devoted to this topic. The answer is yes when I realize the niche for this new journal. To achieve that we plan launch special issues and also use a strength of guarantee the quality of manuscripts are published by the rigor of its review process. While in major journals the publication can take months for acceptance to publish we will be very quick for a feedback.

Association of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris, Linnaeus, 1753) and risk perception of zoonotic infection for humans

Dogs were used by the early age people for various important purposes before being domesticated. They perform many roles for people, such as–hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship and more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. However, dogs are also a source of meat in many countries like–Korea. In this modern world dogs are not just pets but they are treated like members of the family.

As pets have a close bond with human, there is a major risk of health hazard. Dogs harbor a number of infective stages of disease causative agents transmissible to man. They become infected with an internal or external parasite at some point in its lifetime. Parasites can affect the pets in a variety of ways, ranging from simple irritation to causing life-threatening conditions if left untreated. Some parasites can even infect and transmit diseases to human. To date, domestic animals represent an important source of zoonotic diseases. A zoonotic disease is a disease that can be passed between animals and humans. Household pets play a direct role in transmitting zoonosis.

Individual immune system responds differently

Each individual immune system is highly specific but extremely distant from other individuals. Based on recent technological advancement whole immune system analysis reveal different immune profiling for every individual. Herein, we clarified the detailed variation in the human immune system with coherence to their respective effecting factors. The most influencing factors include age, time, gender, heritable, non-heritable, non-pathogenic, pathogenic microbes, genetic makeup and environment. Correlating these factors analysis will help us to investigate and treat numerous immune pathological conditions with highest specificity at the doorstep of every individual in the near future.