Nada India Foundation News update

OPINION  :  Hooch Victims: Not Just Numbers! Prof. T K Thomas  12 Feb, 2019 at 13:59 PM Picture courtesy  Hooch tragedy death toll seems to have become just numbers! The coverage of the tragedy last week, that struck mourners from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh returning after a funeral in Uttarakhand was perfunctory and the death toll had risen to almost 100 when reports last came in. What is unusual about it? Don’t we have statistics of major death tolls in hooch tragedies? In the last decade it is reported that at least a thousand people perished drinking illicit liquor. It is as if such large number of deaths is a routine affair and these human lives seems to have no value and are considered just numbers. The loss of human life, one or hundred in rail, road or air accident; building collapse or fire; medical negligence or an epidemic, stampede or terror attack has to be viewed as loss of precious human lives. It does not matter whether the victims are mal...

With India having the largest number of   Tuberculosis  patients in the world, we definitely encounter high proportion of alcohol and drug users with TB (approx. 2 in 10 alcohol and drug users are diagnosed with TB). At present India does'nt have any screening mechanisms in place to identify asymptomatic TB patients at the drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres but data is collected on the basis of self reporting and screening of symptomatic patients. Any patient at the drug /alcohol rehabilitation centre showing symptoms of TB is referred for TB testing and if identified as TB positive these patients are sent for TB treatment but are never usually followed up or retained for alcohol de-addiction treatment. The patients are sent back home and don't continue their stay at the center potentially due to lack of infection control facilities at the rehabilitation centre. Even recently at the community conversation for NCD voices on Our Views, Our Voices" conducted by Nada ...

$ "At the age of 17 years, Mahesh has given up his schooling to work as a salesman." Alcohol violence in the family is forcing a lot of children to join work force. We target to sensitize 500 children about the issue of alcoholism and NCDs & encourage them to continue their education. Uma's troubles became worse when her husband started using alcohol and abuse became an everyday affair. We intend to counsel, heal 240 women survivors of violence to seek help and to live healthy & productive life. Challenge Worldwide, 3 million deaths every year result from harmful use of alcohol. It can lead to a range of mental, behavioural and other non-communicable conditions (NCDs). The harmful use of alcohol also brings significant social and economic losses to individuals and society at large. The recovering addicts and their families are usually not aware of NCDs and its relation with their alcohol and drug use. Moreover, discrimination from socie...

 SAFER – a new WHO initiative to boost national alcohol policy processes Published 10. 10 2018 by  Dag Endal WHO recently launched a new action package – SAFER. It aims at supporting the global target of reducing harmful use of alcohol by 10% by 2025. The initiative has been strongly supported by several global civil society networks. SAFER is a WHO-led roadmap to support governments in taking practical steps to accelerate progress on health, beat non-communicable diseases (NCDs) through addressing the harmful use of alcohol, and to achieve sustainable development targets. The SAFER package provides technical guidance on five high-impact strategic actions that are prioritized for implementation to promote health and development: S trengthen restrictions on alcohol availability. A dvance and enforce drink driving countermeasures. F acilitate access to screening, brief interventions, and treatment. E nforce bans or comprehensive restrictions on alcohol advertis...