Let’s pledge to save lives, let’s pledge to donate organs!

Earlier this month, the Union Health Minister, Jagat Prakash Nadda, highlighted how India had achieved a milestone that we can all truly be proud of. “Due to the unwavering dedication of our transplant professionals, India achieved a remarkable milestone of performing over 18,900 organ transplants in 2024, the highest ever recorded in a single year. […]

Organ Donation

World Organ Donation Day: ‘Don’t take your organs to heaven; heaven knows we need them here,’ says leading liver transplant surgeon Dr Arvinder Singh Soin

According to the Union Health Ministry, India has made unprecedented progress in the field of organ transplantation — performing over 18,900 organ transplants in 2024 alone, the highest ever recorded in a single year. This is a sharp rise from fewer than 5,000 such surgeries in 2013, placing India third in the world after the […]

World Breastfeeding Week: Ignore the noise, listen to the experts!

Hello, When I was pregnant with my first child a couple of years ago, I thought I had done everything I could do to prepare myself for this beautiful journey. I had researched, I had planned, and I was convinced I was able to determine what is best for my child. One of the first […]

ADiRA AI

AI is here to stay—might as well learn how to use it responsibly!

Hello, Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is now quickly transforming our approach to most industries—from media to communications, and from healthcare to transportation. Words like ChatGPT, prompting, and Generative AI have now become part of everyday lexicon for many. However, where many see opportunities, as a journalist, I am trained to look for the potential pitfalls: […]

Bihar BIMLI Health Literacy credible health information

Health Literacy Matters!

Hello! One often wonders what is the point of a health literacy training. Can we really change attitudes towards health and health information by a few training sessions? Can we ensure that health misinformation doesn’t spread, by just empowering people with the practical tools needed to differentiate between reliable and unreliable sources of health information […]

International Day of Action for Women's Health - AI generated

International Day of Action for Women’s Health: Tech led solutions that are revolutionising women’s health

Women’s health has been neglected, poorly studied and underfunded for far too long now. It is now well established that historically, women were excluded from most medical studies. They were conducted on men, and the data collected from them were generalized to women. In fact, many studies conducted on rodents too, excluded female rodents, as […]

vaccines

Vaccines are your best friend!

154 million lives in 50 years. 6 lives. Every minute. Every day. For 5 decades. That is the number of lives saved by vaccines, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet even today, there are many who are hesitant and even outright refuse to take the life-saving shots, because misinformation about safety concerns, side […]

vaccines Dr Soumya Swaminathan

World Immunization Week: Vaccines are probably one of the biggest innovation of the 20th century, says Dr Soumya Swaminathan

  According to the World Health Organization six lives have been saved every minute for the last 50 years, because of essential vaccines—that is 15.4 crore lives in five decades. “In these 50 years, vaccination accounts for 40% of the improvement in infant survival, and more children now live to see their first birthday and […]

women's health

Women’s Health Matters

Hello! As promised in the previous newsletter, the month of March was dedicated to Women’s Health at First Check, where we focused on women centric stories. However, while we had started out to educate our readers and arm them with credible and verified information, it was us who truly learnt something by the end of […]

Women's Day

Happy Women’s Day

“Communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women.” -Michelle Obama Welcome to another newsletter from First Check– your one-stop shop for all the latest credible, verified, and useful health-related information. This month I wanted to speak to you something that is very close to our hearts […]

New Year, New Collaborations!

Hello! We have some great news for our readers; you can now read selected stories by First Check on THE WEEK as well! THE WEEK, published by the 137-year-old Malayala Manorama group, is India’s bestselling news magazine in English and is known for over 40 years of award-winning journalism. First Check will be providing exclusive […]

health of India

SAVE THE DATE: The Health of India Summit is back!

Hello! 👋 Welcome to another First Check newsletter! We hope you had a happy, bright and healthy Diwali! 🪔🎉 While you were busy with the festival season, we have also had an eventful couple of months at First Check, with more fact-checks, more stories, and more engaging content and products- all for YOU. 🫵 The […]