Take care of your health, body

The World Health Day is celebrated by the people across the world every year on April 7 to draw attention of people at mass level towards the importance of global health. It was during the World Health Assembly in 1948 when a decision was taken to celebrate the World Health Day every year on April 7 under the aegis of the World Health Organization, primarily to generate the common public awareness towards the health issues and concerns.

World Health Day targets all the health issues on global  basis and focuses on increasing the life expectancy by adding good health to the lives of people  and promoting healthier living habits.. Since its establishment, the WHO has addressed serious health issues including chickenpox, polio, smallpox, TB. Leprosy, etc. from various developing countries and has played a significant role aiming to make the world a healthy world.

Every year, a particular theme is chosen to celebrate the World Health Day at global level. While last year, the theme of the World Health Day was  `Healthy heart beat, Healthy blood pressure, this year the WHO has chosen `Vector-borne disease’ as the theme of the World Health Day 2014.

It is ironical that despite tremendous advancement in the medical field across the world, a complete control on vector-borne diseases like Malaria, Dengue, Lymphatic, Felariasis, Kala-azar, Japanese Encephalitis and Chikungunya in India is still appears to be a far cry notwithstanding the fact the Directorate of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, a central nodal agency has taken several measures for the prevention and control of vector borne diseases.

Reversing the trend of emergent/resurgent vector-borne diseases is a major challenge. Vaccines, available for only a few diseases (yellow  fever, Japanese encephalitis, tick-borne encepha-litis, tularemia, plague), are not widely used. Vaccine prospects for major vector-borne dis-eases are not good. With the exception of malaria, few other vector-borne diseases have funding for vaccine research.

As the whole world is celebrating the World Health Day today, we all need to pay equal concern to our health, like we pay to other materialistic things in our lives. Ironically in this fast-paced world we   are so pre-0ccupied to achieve our professional goals that concern for our health has taken a back seat.

So take care of your body as it is the only place you have to live in.

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Forests are essential for life on Earth

Forests are essential for life on Earth. They not only give us shade and shelter but also   clean air and water essential to sustain our lives. Ironically with ever increasing global population and subsequent demand for forest products, the forests world over are at risk from widespread deforestation and degradation, notwithstanding the fact  around 1.6 billion people - including more than 2,000 indigenous cultures - depend on forests for their livelihood.

Yet, despite all these ecological, economic, social and health benefits, the growing urbanization has taken a huge toll on our forest cover with trees are being felled mercilessly to make way for the habitation of our urban populace as well for industries. If available statistics are to be believed with global deforestation continuing at an alarming pace, about 13 million hectares of forest are destroyed annually. Deforestation accounts for 12 to 20 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

On the World Forestry Day today, let us take a united pledge to become environmentally conscious and adopt a positive attitude towards the nature so that our forests are protected. Each of us need to develop habit to  plant saplings whenever and wherever we are. At the same time, it should also be our bounden duty to persuade others to desist from engaging themselves in activities that negatively affect our surroundings  and environment.

Let us join together to protect our nature today so as to make our tomorrow  safe, particularly for our posteriors.

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