North
Preventive health in Punjab
Hepatitis C has an unusually high profile here, alongside the groundwater contamination that also shapes the state's cancer picture.
What matters most in Punjab
Hepatitis C
Why here: Historically high burden linked to unsafe injections and reused equipment; it destroys the liver silently over decades and is now curable.
What to look for: Usually none for years. Then tiredness, yellow eyes, swelling of the abdomen or legs.
What to do: Free testing and curable treatment under the state and national viral hepatitis programme. Anyone who has had injections, dialysis, transfusion or tattooing should test once.
Arsenic and heavy metals in groundwater
Why here: Contaminated groundwater in parts of the state affects skin, kidney and long-term cancer risk.
What to look for: Dark or mottled pigmentation on the chest and back, thickened patches on palms and soles.
What to do: Get the source tested through the district lab. Boiling does not remove arsenic — it concentrates it. Reverse osmosis or a tested piped supply does.
Dengue
Why here: Seasonal urban transmission across the state after the monsoon.
What to look for: The day 3–7 warning phase: belly pain, vomiting, bleeding.
What to do: Empty and scrub coolers, tanks and drums weekly — the mosquito breeds in clean stored water. Paracetamol only; ibuprofen and aspirin worsen bleeding.
And everywhere in India
These are not specific to Punjab, but they cause more illness nationally than anything above, and every one of them is covered free by a national programme.
An intensively farmed state, which puts snakebite in the working day during the paddy and harvest months. Dengue arrives after the monsoon in Ludhiana, Amritsar and the district towns. The hepatitis C burden listed above is worth reading alongside TB below: both are treated free under national programmes, and both depend on finishing a course rather than stopping when you feel better.
Tuberculosis
What to do: Diagnosis and the full drug course are free under the NTEP at any government facility. Stopping early is what creates drug-resistant TB — finish the course.
Snakebite
What to do: Go straight to a government hospital with antivenom. Do not cut, suck, or apply a tourniquet, and do not go to a traditional healer first — that detour is what kills.
Rabies
What to do: Wash the wound with soap under running water for 15 minutes, then get the vaccine the same day. Free under the NRCP. A wound that looks trivial still counts.
Dengue
What to do: Fluids and paracetamol only. Avoid ibuprofen and aspirin, which worsen bleeding. Empty standing water weekly — the mosquito breeds in clean water at home, not in drains.
What to look for with each of these, and why they matter across India →
The programmes named on this page
- NTEP — National TB Elimination Programme
- NRCP — National Rabies Control Programme
Each is a real government programme, and the testing or treatment described is free at a government facility.
Have a lab report from Punjab?
Turn it into a plain-language plan — with food and activity guidance for your own region and season. Free.
Make my free plan →