UK to stop funding homeopathy medicines

Though it is a well-known fact that homeopathy is useless and equal to placebo, a large amount of scarce public resources are wasted on it by many governments all over the world. Now one such wastage will be stopped soon. The National Health Service in United Kingdom is proposing a ban on providing homeopathy medicines.

 The NHS has announced a ban on homeopathy and herbal medicine as they say it is “misuse of scarce funds”.

Officials today ruled that the treatments are among dozens of medicines which should not be funded by the health service.

In the last five years, the NHS has spent almost £600,000 on homeopathic treatment, despite long running debate about whether alternative remedies work.

Today NHS England ruled that “at best homeopathy is a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds which could be better devoted to treatments that work.”

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Leprosy surges in India

Leprosy it seems is making a come back at least in some parts of India.

Leprosy may have left the public discourse but it is still prevalent in India: in six months from April to September 2016, 79,000 leprosy cases were detected, according toNational Health Profile, 2017.

Leprosy is a slow progressive disease that damages the skin and the nervous system.Caused due to infection by Mycobacterium leprae, it leads to skin lesions, disfigurement and loss of sensation in limbs

Uttar Pradesh had the most number of cases (13,423) but it was the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli that has the highest prevalence of 7.93 per 10,000, which means nearly 8 people in 10,000 have leprosy.

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