'Glamorous' diseases claim less lives but corner funds

India's largest killers, responsible for 20 per cent of all deaths, are respiratory diseases and infections. You would think they rank high in the research concerns of Indian scientists, right? Dead wrong. They come a dismal 24th in the list of medical research priorities. Cancer is responsible for only 0.1 per cent of all deaths. But cancer research is high profile, opens doors to western collaborations and is "trendy". It ranks No. 6 in the list of medical priorities.

Something is wrong here. A new study has found that the attention India gives to the diseases which claim the most victims are not the diseases high on our scientists' list of priorities. The largest number of cases are those of acute respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, communicable diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy, and infancy diseases, according to government records.