Highlights:
- Nipah virus alert in West Bengal. Five Health Care Workers show symptoms.
- NEET-PG Farce: The Falling Standards for admission to Medical PG seats.
- Gullian Barre Syndrome outbreak in Madhya Pradesh, 2 deaths.
Website: https://uho.org.in
Download:https://uho.org.in/nl/2026-01-23-newsletter.pdf (copy and paste the link)
Dr. Amitav Banerjee, Chairperson of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO), presented the latest newsletter, which highlights significant health updates, including infectious disease outbreaks, legislative concerns regarding medical education, and public health recommendations aimed at improving community health outcomes.
Nipah virus alert in West Bengal. Five Health Care Workers show symptoms.
Health authorities are rushing to contain a Nipah virus outbreak in West Bengal after five cases were reported and nearly 100 people quarantined.
Three new infections were reported earlier this week, authorities said, adding to two existing cases of nurses, one male and one female, who had earlier tested positive. The nurses were working at a private hospital in Barasat near Kolkata.
Initial investigations suggested that the infection may have originated in a village in Nadia district, close to the Bangladesh border. However, officials are also examining whether the nurses may have contracted the virus while treating a patient who later died with severe respiratory symptoms.
The new confirmed cases included a doctor, a nurse, and a health staff member. Nipah virus, which spreads between animals and people, is classified as a priority pathogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) because of its potential to trigger an epidemic. There is no vaccine to prevent infection and no treatment to cure it.
Nearly 100 people have been asked to quarantine in their homes.
People with the latest infections have been admitted to the infectious diseases hospital in eastern Kolkata’s Beleghata, while the earlier ones are still admitted in the Intensive Care Unit at a private hospital.
With the virus seen in certain species of bats, the infection among humans are rare and caused by the accidental spillover due to human-bat interface, which means consumption of fruits that could have been infected by bats.
This is more likely in rural and forest-adjacent areas where agricultural practices increase contact between humans and fruit bats searching for food. It is transmitted from animals – particularly fruit bats – to humans, often through contaminated food such as raw date palm sap, or through direct contact with infected individuals.
In both West Bengal and Bangladesh, outbreaks have frequently been linked to bat-contaminated date palm juice, which is widely consumed during the winter months in the form of jaggery (Nolen Gur or Khejur Gur) made from date palm juice and used in making sweets like Sandesh.
However, consuming date palm jaggery (Nolen Gur/Khajur Gur) is generally considered safe because the virus is destroyed during the heating/boiling process used to make it, unlike raw date palm sap (tari/juice) which is a major transmission route for Nipah virus from bats. While the raw sap can become contaminated with bat saliva/urine, boiling it into jaggery or consuming processed products like date sweets is safe, but one should avoid raw, unboiled sap at all costs.
Nipah virus is considered highly dangerous due to its high fatality rate, estimated to range between 40 per cent and 75 per cent. The virus can cause severe illness, including encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain. Nipah has a high fatality rate, but it rarely spreads from human to human and usually remains localised. Therefore it does not have the potential to trigger pandemics.
It is transmitted from animals – particularly fruit bats – to humans, often through contaminated food such as raw date palm sap, or through direct contact with infected individuals.
In both West Bengal and Bangladesh, outbreaks have frequently been linked to bat-contaminated date palm juice, which is widely consumed during the winter months.
UHO recommends creating of awareness programs and promotion of protective measures among the workers engaged in raw date palm sap harvesting. Research should explore raw sap distribution and trading networks in large areas to better characterize the geographies, behavioral, and cultural practices that influence Nipah virus transmission. Culture-sensitive interventions with economic incentives, involving harvesters, local governments, and non-governmental organizations, along with testing the effectiveness of protective measures, are essential to prevent the spillover of Nipah and other bat-borne emerging viruses in endemic regions.
NEET-PG Farce: The Falling Standards for admission to Medical PG seats.
Profit before patients is gradually becoming the trend in the medical profession.
First, medical practice turned from a calling to a business with corporate hospitals mushrooming and driving away private practice by independent doctors and small polyclinics.
Next, it was the turn of medical education which over the years is increasingly became a business with profit over quality of medical students and post-graduates.
Things have come to a farcical turn with the NEET PG cut-off being lowered to “0 percentile” which corresponds to “minus 40” marks out of a possible 800 (due to negative marking). The reason for this was ostensibly to fill up the 1800 vacancies remaining in the medical colleges after all the rounds of counselling for PG seats.
However according to the Economic Times this ridiculous lowering of standards for a profession dealing with life and death was done earlier too in 2023. However at that time only “zero percentile” was declared as the cut-off without revealing that it corresponded to “minus 40 marks.”
UHO considers this a commerce driven decision rather than for patient welfare. Merit should take precedence over profit in a profession dealing with life and death. We are also facing acute shortage of pilots for quite some time. How would the public take it if the aviation minister declares lowering the standards for pilot training and recruitment? Doctors are also performing duties where life is at stake. Poor quality of doctors may also endanger life and cause more harm than good.
If postgraduate medical seats are vacant the government should put in the public domain how many of them are in private medical colleges. If government really cares about filling these seats for welfare of patients than it should select on merit those candidates who have scored decent marks in the NEET-PG exam but could not afford to pay the exorbitant fees of the private medical colleges. These candidates can be accommodated to fill up the vacant seats in private medical colleges with their fees subsidized by the government.
The decision to lower the NEET-PG cut-off to zero percentile and negative scores has also been challenged by a doctors association who have moved the Supreme Court through a PIL.
The petition led by Dr. Lakshya Mittal and others, in the larger public interest, highlights that allowing candidates with abnormally low or negative scores to qualify for postgraduate medical training poses a serious threat to patient safety, public health, and the integrity of the medical profession. It contends that the impugned decision is arbitrary, unconstitutional, and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.
The PIL further submits that such dilution of merit is contrary to settled judicial principles and violates the statutory mandate under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, which obligates regulatory bodies to maintain minimum standards in medical education. The petition seeks appropriate directions from the Hon’ble Supreme Court, including quashing of the impugned NBEMS notification and issuance of directions to restore and protect minimum qualifying standards in postgraduate medical education. The matter has been recently filed and is likely to be listed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the coming days.
UHO would be keeping a track on further developments with updates.
Gullian Barre Syndrome outbreak in Madhya Pradesh, 2 deaths.
A Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) outbreak has been reported in Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district. According to the health officials, two children have died, and 18 cases (9 confirmed and 9 suspected) have been reported over the past few days.
(GBS) is a rare neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of the peripheral nerves. This condition affects the nerves that control muscle movement as well as those that transmit pain, temperature and touch sensations. GBS can lead to muscle weakness, numbness, and sometimes paralysis.
GBS is a rare condition, however, it can lead to severe outcomes.
Symptoms of GBS:
GBS symptoms can vary from person to person, but common symptoms include:
- Weakness or tingling in the legs
- Rapid onset of muscle weakness
- Difficulty with walking or climbing stairs
- Loss of reflexes
- Severe cases can lead to difficulty breathing or swallowing
The exact cause of Guillain-Barre Syndrome is not fully understood. GBS is often triggered by “molecular mimicry,” where the immune system confuses nerve cells with invading germs. However, it often follows an infection, such as a respiratory or gastrointestinal infection. Certain infections, including Campylobacter jejuni, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and Zika virus, have been associated with GBS.
GBS has also been associated with the influenza and the Covid-19 vaccines. Regrettably, this association is downplayed by the mainstream media as well as the medical community in spite of GBS and its association with vaccines has been published in peer reviewed papers. Similarly, last year there was a large outbreak of GBS in Pune bwith over 225 cases and 12 deaths. The suspected cause was infection with Campylobacter jejuni which can be transmitted by contaminated water and food supplies particularly poultry.
UHO recommends improvement of basis food hygiene, safe water and sanitation accessible to the population to prevent such water borne outbreaks. In view of the association with vaccines, reported in the peer reviewed literature, any association of GBS with vaccines should also be thoroughly by the medical research community instead of downplaying this potential cause.
The weekly newsletters bring the updates on the science, battered and bruised during the pandemic, legal updates and impact of activism for a just society, across the world. These are small steps to promote Transparency, Empowerment and Accountability – the ethos of the UHO.
Announcement: Membership & endorsements to the UHO invited: https://uho.org.in/member.php
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