ABSTRACT
India is home to the largest population of indigenous tribes in the world. Despite initiative of the National Rural Health Mission, now National Health Mission (NHM) and various tribal development programmes since India’s Independence, disparity in healthcare for Scheduled Tribes (STs) prevails. The constitution of Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committees (VHSNCs) in 2007 by the NHM is a step towards decentralized planning and community engagement to improve health, nutrition and sanitation services. VHSNCs are now present in almost all States of the country. However, several reports including the 12th Common Review Mission report have highlighted that these committees are not uniformly following guidelines and lack clarity about their mandates, with no clear visibility of their functioning in tribal areas. Therefore, this review was conducted to assess the participation of the VHSNCs in tribal dominated States in order to know in detail about their functioning and gaps if any that require intervention. Several deviations from the existing guidelines of NHM were identified and we concluded that in order to sustain and perform well, VHSNCs not only require, mobilization and strict monitoring but also motivation and willingness of its members to bring in a radical change at the grassroot level. With continuous supervision and support from both the Government and various non- governmental organizations, handholding, strategic deployment of workforce, community participation and sustained financial support, VHSNCs would be able to facilitate delivery of better healthcare to the indigenous population
ABSTRACT
Stool samples from a total of 162 individuals were examined. The subjects were residents of sitio Gungnan and Kambing of barrio Panitian, municipality of Quezon and also from sitio Pananbuan of barrio Cabuyugan, Puerto Princesa. Those from Gungnan and Kambing are called "Palawanos" while those from Pananauan are called "Batacs". The overall picture for the three common intestinal helminths is quite different from people coming from other parts of the Philippines. This observation is also true with regards to the findings on protozoa. There were marked differences in prevalence between the two tribes with respect to ascariasis, trichuris and hookworm infection. The same observation is true also for the protozoan parasites. As far as we know, this is the first intestinal parasitic survey done among indigenous tribes in Palawan.(Summary)