One of the commonest causes of illness, a sore throat often clears up on its own, but knowing what's causing it is important to treat it properly. Viral, bacterial, or caused by allergic elements - these kinds of sore throats have different characteristics that need different responses.

Sore throats have several origins, including infection and environmental factors. Some common causes include:

Viral infections: Viruses cause 90% of sore throat cases. Sore throats may result due to flu or common cold as well as those from chickenpox and measles that can all cause irritation.

Bacterial Infections: Streptococcus bacteria, the most common cause of strep throat, is the most common bacterial source. Strep throat is contagious and can lead to complications if untreated.

Allergies: Pollen, pet dander, and mold can trigger throat irritation, often accompanied by postnasal drip, sneezing, and watery eyes.

Environmental Factors: Dry air, pollution, and smoke can dry out or irritate the throat, creating a scratchy sensation.

Other Causes: GERD, vocal strain, even tumors may be responsible for chronic sore throats.

How to Distinguish Between Viral, Bacterial, and Allergic Sore Throats

Determining your cause of sore throat requires analysis of symptoms that accompany it, how long the sore throat lasts, and how bad the sore throat is.

Viral Sore Throats

The viruses that cause a sore throat are usually similar to a cold in their symptoms and tend to be milder than bacterial infections.

Symptoms of Viral Sore Throat

- Red, swollen throat without white patches

- Persistent cough

- Runny nose and nasal congestion

- Fever, usually mild

Duration: Viral infections last for 7–10 days without antibiotics.

Treatment: Home remedies, such as warm fluids, saltwater gargling, and over-the-counter pain relievers can help alleviate it.

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Bacterial Sore Throats

Bacterial sore throats, mainly strep throat, are more severe and require prompt medical attention to prevent complications.

Symptoms of Bacterial Sore Throat

- Red and swollen tonsils with white patches or streaks of pus

- High fever

- Absence of a cough

- Nausea, vomiting, or stomach pain (especially in children)

- Small red spots on the roof of the mouth

Diagnosis: Rapid strep tests or throat cultures confirm the presence of bacteria.

Treatment: Antibiotics are necessary to eliminate the infection. Without treatment, complications like rheumatic fever or abscesses can develop.

Sore Throats Caused by Allergies

Throat irritation is caused by postnasal drip. Allergies create a buildup and drip of mucus down the back of the throat.

Allergic Sore Throat Symptoms

- Irritation of the throat and ears

- Runny eyes, sneezing, and nasal congestion

- These symptoms are usually relieved by antihistamines or removal from the source of the allergen

Duration: Allergic sore throats are sustained for as long as the allergens are exposed.

When to Seek Medical Care?

A sore throat should be taken to a doctor if:

- The condition lasts more than a week.

- There is shortness of breath or swallowing becomes painful.

- Swelling is too pronounced or the pain in the throat is extreme.

- High fever, rash, or joint pain occur along with the sore throat.

- A child shows signs of dehydration or refuses fluids due to throat pain.

Early diagnosis can prevent complications and speed recovery.

Effective Treatment for Sore Throats

Home Remedies for Viral and Allergy-Related Sore Throats

Viral infections and allergies often respond well to non-invasive treatments:

• Drink warm teas, broths, or water to soothe the throat.
• Gargling with warm, salty water can reduce inflammation.
• These help soothe an irritated throat and can alleviate coughing.

Let your body rest sufficiently. Humidifying dry air will help keep the throat moist, especially when winter is on its way.

Why Not All Sore Throats Require Antibiotics?

Bacterial infections require antibiotics such as penicillin or amoxicillin. Finish the treatment completely to avoid reoccurrence or resistance.

How to Keep Sore Throats at Bay When Winter Is Near

Prevention is better than cure, and simple lifestyle changes can reduce your risk:

• Wash your hands frequently to avoid infections.
• Avoid close contact with sick individuals.
• Use air purifiers to minimize exposure to irritants.
• Stay hydrated and maintain a balanced diet to boost immunity.

Understanding the cause of your sore throat—whether viral, bacterial, or allergic—is key to effective treatment and recovery. While many sore throats resolve on their own, seeking timely medical advice for persistent or severe symptoms can prevent complications. Prioritize self-care, and don’t hesitate to consult a doctor when needed. Remember, your throat’s health is a vital part of your overall well-being.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which today cancelled the NEET-UG 2026 examination held on May 3 amid allegations of a paper leak, has left thousands of students across the country anxious, frustrated, and emotionally overwhelmed, triggering protests and outrage among students and parents.

According to mental health experts, such uncertainty can deeply affect students who have spent months preparing for the examination, often sacrificing sleep, proper meals, and their social lives. The sudden cancellation of the exam can therefore leave them feeling helpless, uncertain, and emotionally exhausted.

Experts stressed that this setback should not be seen as a personal failure and urged students to remain calm.

Speaking to HealthandMe, Dr. Aarti Anand, Senior Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said feelings of anger, helplessness, disappointment, and anxiety are natural during such situations, especially when the future appears uncertain.

“It is very natural to feel anxious and helpless at this point, but remember that you are not alone in this situation. Thousands of students are going to be affected,” she said.

She also emphasized that students should not assume that their hard work has gone to waste.

NEET-UG 2026: What Is The Controversy All About?

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) is India’s primary national-level entrance examination conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to undergraduate medical (MBBS), dental (BDS), and AYUSH courses in government and private institutions.

The single, standardized offline test for this year was conducted on May 3 for over 22.79 lakh candidates across India and abroad.

“The examination on 3 May 2026 was conducted as scheduled and under a full security protocol,” the NTA said.

However, according to information shared by Rajasthan Police officials, alleged malpractice came to light after certain question sets circulated before the examination reportedly showed similarities with the actual NEET-UG paper.

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Officials probing the matter stated that they recovered a document containing more than 400 questions that had allegedly been circulated days before the exam. Out of these, more than 100 questions from Biology and Chemistry were said to bear “striking similarities” to those that eventually appeared in the examination.

Authorities have described the material as resembling a “guess paper” or coaching-style test series, though investigators have not ruled out the possibility of a larger organized network.

The government has now ordered a comprehensive Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged irregularities surrounding the examination.

The NTA has also announced that the medical entrance test will be conducted again on fresh dates to be notified separately, a development that many students feel undermines the time and effort they invested in preparation.

NEET-UG 2026 Cancelled: What Effect Can This Have On Students?

Dr. Manisha Arora, Director - Internal Medicine at the CK Birla Hospital, Delhi, told HealthandMe that students can experience palpitations, migraines, insomnia, and constant worry about their rank and future.

“Postponement can feel like an identity suspension. Students start thinking, ‘What if I do not get the same marks next time? What if I have forgotten everything? What if the exam is harder? What if questions come from outside the syllabus?”

“These thoughts are very common. Students can also develop headaches, dizziness, stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea, insomnia, racing heartbeat, panic attacks, binge eating, or even loss of appetite,” Dr. Manisha said, warning parents and guardians to pay close attention to students’ mental well-being.

NEET-UG 2026 Cancelled: How Can Students Cope With The Stress?

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“One important thing for students to understand is that the knowledge they have gained will not go to waste. They will be able to appear for the exam on the next date,” Dr. Aarti said.

She added that students must acknowledge their emotions instead of suppressing them.

“Students should acknowledge their feelings instead of suppressing them. They should use this pause as a way of structuring their life and moving ahead. They should focus on self-care, sleep, food, and hygiene instead of watching media discussions,” she said.

Mental health professionals also advised students to avoid excessive speculation and negative thinking about future examinations. Instead, they recommended maintaining routines, staying connected with family and friends, and continuing preparation steadily.

“I urge all students not to think negatively, overthink, or fuss about what will happen in the next exam. It is very important for students to keep calm and continue their preparation,” she said.

Dr. Aarti further noted that such moments can become a test of emotional strength and resilience for students navigating academic pressure.

“Students should not feel that the cancellation is a failure. It is not a failure,” she added.

Dr. Manisha urged students to build on the preparation they have already done, gradually remove exam fear from their minds, restart calmly, and prepare themselves to appear for the exam again.

If you have ever attended a nursing pinning ceremony in India, you know the moment. The lights dim. Young women carrying small brass lamps walk in, their faces glowing softly as they recite the Nightingale Pledge. Somewhere in the audience, a mother wipes her eyes because her daughter has become the first nurse in their family. The lamp is small. The promise it carries is enormous.

I have stood in many such auditoriums. Today, as a Director of Nursing, I stand among the senior nurses watching the next generation arrive. And I want to tell the young nurse holding that lamp something I wish someone had told me years ago: the profession you are entering is not the same profession your seniors entered. It is wider, brighter, and finally beginning to make room for you.

This year’s International Council of Nurses theme, “Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives,” feels written for that young woman holding the lamp. It says clearly that the future of healthcare belongs to her.

To understand that future, we must first look at the women who carried the profession before her.

I think of Annie. She trained in Kerala thirty years ago, moved north for her first posting, and never left. She has helped deliver more than two thousand babies in labor rooms that are often crowded, short-staffed, and always full of hope and fear. She does the things doctors rarely have time for. She teaches first-time mothers how to latch a baby, reassures anxious fathers, and explains kangaroo mother care to grandmothers who understand it instinctively the moment skin meets skin.

“When a baby is born,” Annie says, “a mother is born too. Sometimes she needs more help learning to be a mother than the baby needs learning to be a baby. That teaching is also nursing.”

I think of Sunita, who leads a Delhi ICU. During the second COVID wave, she lost a colleague to the virus and returned to duty the next morning. “I cried in the changing room, then I washed my face, then I went back. That is nursing.”

That is also leadership in its rawest form — the kind young nurses inherit not in classrooms, but in hospital corridors at 3 a.m.

What Annie and Sunita share is something quietly extraordinary: they teach. Ask any Indian family about the first hours of their child’s life, and they may remember the doctor briefly, but they will remember the nurse for much longer. It is the nurse who places the baby on the mother’s chest during the golden hour. The nurse who teaches breastfeeding explains danger signs before discharge, and shows trembling parents how to hold or bathe a newborn safely.

This is parent education in its purest form, and in India, it is overwhelmingly delivered by nurses. Florence Nightingale once called maternal nursing the most consequential nursing of all. More than a century later, she is still right.

And here is what is changing for today’s young nurses.

The corporate healthcare sector in India is finally building career pathways that reflect what nurses have always contributed. Roles like Nurse Practitioner in Obstetrics, Nurse Practitioner in Neonatology, certified lactation consultants, childbirth educators, fetal medicine nurses, IVF nurse coordinators, and clinical nurse specialists are no longer distant Western concepts. These opportunities now exist in Indian maternity and child healthcare, and they will increasingly be led by your generation.

The doors do not stop there. There are paths from bedside nursing to leadership roles such as charge nurse, unit manager, Assistant Director, and Director of Nursing. There are opportunities in clinical education, quality and patient safety, infection control, simulation training, research, accreditation, and hospital operations. Nurses who once knew only the hospital floor are now helping shape decisions in boardrooms.

This is what an empowered profession looks like — not a parallel system, but a real ladder built inside the very institutions where nurses dedicate their lives.

Nursing is finally being recognized as a clinical profession in its own right. Virginia Henderson described the nurse as “the consciousness of the unconscious, the eyes of the blind, the support of the weak.” Today, workplaces are slowly beginning to match that reality with better staffing norms, stronger security measures, and greater respect for nursing leadership. Progress may not be perfect, but the direction is right.

For perhaps the first time in Indian corporate healthcare, nursing is being seen not as a cost to minimize, but as a profession worth investing in. You are entering nursing at a moment when the profession itself is being rebuilt.

So, to the young nurse holding the lamp tonight: there will come a night when you are exhausted. The shift will have been long. A patient or relative may have spoken harshly. You will sit quietly in the changing room and wonder, for one honest moment, why you chose this profession. In that moment, remember this.

You chose the profession that places a newborn, still warm from birth, onto the chest of the woman who carried her. You chose the profession that teaches a young father, hands shaking with joy and fear, how to hold his baby safely for the first time. You chose the profession that sits beside the dying when even families cannot bear the pain. You chose the profession that quietly keeps hospitals alive through the night.

Mother Teresa once said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Nurses do small things with great love every single day. But they also do great things, most of them unseen.

You will notice a newborn’s fever before anyone else does. You will recognize the silence of a struggling mother before it becomes dangerous. You will be the reason a patient survives, heals, or feels less afraid. None of this may appear on a discharge summary. But somewhere, in a family’s prayers, your care will remain unforgettable long after your name is forgotten.

And remember the mother from the beginning of this piece — the one wiping tears as her daughter walks in carrying a brass lamp. She represents every mother in India. She is the mother Annie reassured thousands of times. She is the mother Sunita prayed for during the pandemic.

And one day, she will sit in another auditorium watching another young nurse step forward to receive her lamp.

Because here is the detail most people miss about the lamp-lighting ceremony: no nurse lights her own lamp. A senior nurse lights it first, and from that flame every junior lamp begins to glow. Nursing is a profession that passes its light forward. Annie lit Sunita. Sunita will light you. And one day, another young nurse will look to you for light.

When that moment comes, lean forward.

The lamp is still burning. It has burned through wars, pandemics, and generations of women whose work was too often overlooked. It is now in your hands. Carry it gently. Carry it proudly. Carry it far. And when your hands grow tired, do not let it go out.

Contemporary office spaces have been designed to maximise comfort. Comfort includes central air conditioning, comfortable chairs, coffee dispensers, and beautiful interior design. Nonetheless, all these cool offices contribute greatly to the increase in blood pressure among unsuspecting employees. Many office workers spend about 8–10 hours indoors, thinking that comfort equates to good health. Sedentary lifestyles, stress at work, poor eating habits, and minimal movement are some of the factors resulting in increased levels of hypertension among young office-goers.

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In an interview with Health and Me, Dr Tushar Tayal, Associate Director, Internal Medicine, CK Birla Hospital, Gurugram, explained how extreme air conditioning at work can slowly weaken your heart and give you high blood pressure.

Impact of Air-Conditioned Offices on the Body

"Being constantly exposed to an air-conditioned environment may indirectly contribute to the rise in blood pressure levels. Extremely cold temperatures may prevent a person from moving around and sweating. People are less likely to go outside because of the difference in temperature between the interior and exterior environments. On top of that, dry air from air conditioners contributes to dehydration, particularly when people consume too much caffeine and too little water," Dr Tayal explained.

Stress Behind the Screens

Although an office atmosphere may seem serene from the outside, the corporate environment is frequently linked with high mental stress. Pressure to meet targets, appraisals, fear of being laid off, lengthy meetings, and information overload lead to the body being continuously on guard. High levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, can increase blood pressure. Employees often experience silent stress, which means that while they may not feel emotionally stressed, they suffer from physiological symptoms including headaches, exhaustion, irritability, and hypertension.

Sedentary Lifestyle: The Major Risk Factor for High Blood Pressure Among Corporate Employees

A sedentary lifestyle has proven to be one of the major contributors to high blood pressure among corporate employees who spend much of their time sitting while participating in meetings, watching presentations, or working on computers. Physical inactivity makes the heart less effective while causing issues such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. One may think that people who play sports for an hour every day face no risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle, but even then, sedentarism can harm a person. Office employees tend to underestimate the amount of physical activity they engage in at their workplace.

Corporate Dieting: Another Hypertension Risk Factor

Dr Tayal said that the food culture in a corporate office plays a significant role in the development of high blood pressure as well. Numerous tea breaks, snacking on packaged foods with too much salt, takeaway meals, sweet drinks consumed in large amounts, and late suppers after overtime—all these aspects may affect cardiovascular health. Stress-related eating habits and improper food intake also play a role in metabolic disruptions. Consuming foods with excessive salt may be harmful.

BP: Young Professionals Are No Longer Considered “Too Young”

The expert went on to explain that previously, hypertension used to be linked more with elderly individuals. Now, doctors have been noting instances of high blood pressure among young professionals in their mid-20s and 30s. Corporate workers might look healthy from the outside but often neglect signs such as poor sleep quality, fatigue, dizzy spells, or stress. Because there may be no visible signs of high blood pressure, many cases are discovered only through regular medical check-ups. Specialists advise that undiagnosed hypertension can result in serious diseases in the future, such as heart disease or stroke.

Making Corporate Spaces Healthier Places to Work

Modern companies have begun to be urged to reassess the idea of wellness in the office. Promoting physical activity breaks, standing meetings, drinking water, looking after mental health, choosing healthier foods at the company canteen, and getting screened for hypertension can aid in minimising the risks of this illness. Workers can start by implementing small changes, such as doing stretching exercises once an hour, walking around while on the phone, consuming less coffee, and measuring their blood pressure regularly.