THE UN General Assembly has adopted a watered-down political declaration to reduce the burden of chronic lifestyle diseases. The event signals the beginning of a larger fight between industry and health policy makers. The resolution was passed at a summit ahead of the General Assembly in New York on September …
THE World Health Organization has raised alarm over leprosy spreading across India. With the disease infecting about 120,000 people every year, the country is now the biggest contributor to the global leprosy burden, the UN body said in a press release. The Union health ministry had declared the disease, which …
The government of India has banned the sale of gutkha and other chewing tobacco products across the country. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued new regulations on August 1, prohibiting the use of tobacco and nicotine in any edible product. Health experts and civil society groups …
The Planning Commission of India has set up a working group to look into the drug regulatory mechanism in the country. One of the tasks the panel has been entrusted is to devise a strategy to weed out irrational drugs from the market. Most of these drugs are fixed dose …
The government’s ambitious mission to control diabetes has made a reluctant start. Worse, it suffers from lack of planning. The project was launched as part of the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS). The first phase of the diabetes control project started …
Nine-year-old Rani is unhappy. She has to stay away from her mother Janki Patel, who is taking part in a clinical trial at a centre 10 kilometres from her house at Bapu Nagar in Ahmedabad. “I do not like these trials. They take my parents away,” says Rani. In their …
To tighten regulations around clinical trials, a bill was drafted in 2002. Framed as per the guidelines of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), it was submitted to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2007 to be tabled in Parliament. But it has seen no progress ever since. …
Researchers and policy-makers around the world stress on reducing salt intake to control hypertension because its key triggers— stress and faulty lifestyle—are difficult to control. A human body removes extra salt through the kidney. When its intake is excessive, the kidney fails to perform its job and salt starts circulating …
PUBLIC health programmes in India are focused on infectious diseases like cholera and malaria. But non-communicable diseases (NCDS) like cancer and heart ailments are known to kill more people. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad acknowledged rising incidence of NCDS at a two-day World Health Organization (WHO) meeting which concluded …
A recent shift in the drug product environment for Africa has seen a score of new products being developed specifically for diseases of the developing world, creating new challenges for regulators in Africa and elsewhere. However, it is not at all certain that African regulatory authorities currently have the capacity …
Nearly 2 billion people (a third of the world's population) lack access to essential medicines. In low-income and middle-income countries, drugs account for 20
The National Health Policy (NIH), 2002 envisages that keeping in mind the availability and spread of allopathic graduates in their jurisdiction, state governments would consider the need for expanding the pool of medical practitioners to include a cadre of licentiates of medical practice, as also practitioners of Indian systems of …
The lack of skilled service providers in rural areas of India has emerged as the most important constraint in achieving universal health care. India has about 1.4 million medical practitioners, 74% of whom live in urban areas where they serve only 28% of the population, while the rural population remains …
Trade agreements with stiff intellectual property protection requirements combined with buyouts of India’s top generics makers by multinationals threaten to deny affordable medicines to millions of poor. The cost of essential medicines is a major barrier to healthcare, writes LATHA JISHNU. But the Indian government is doing little to control …
In an ideal market economy competition lowers prices of consumer goods. It is just the opposite in the case of pharmaceutical products. More expensive brands sell more. Take Cyclovir, an ointment for treating skin infection caused by herpes. Its therapy cost (cost of one course) is Rs 812, while a …
Bindeshwari, a scrap dealer in Punjab’s Ludhiana district, was asked to buy Cefzy-250 by the doctor treating his wife. She had delivered a baby in the government civil hospital in June-end. The chemist at the hospital’s Jan Aushadhi Store gave Bindeshwari Ceftazidime, a generic version of Cefzy- 250; both drugs …
Rapid expansion of the standardised approach to tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment that is recommended by WHO allowed more than 36 million people to be cured between 1995 and 2008, averting up to 6 million deaths. Yet tuberculosis remains a severe global public health threat. There are more than 9 million …
Surveys indicate that the Janani Suraksha Yojana, which offers cash assistance to pregnant women opting for institutional deliveries, has increased the number of such births in hospitals. Can this increase be used as an indicator of a decrease in the maternal mortality rate? It is likely that the cash incentive …
A meeting of the executive committee, State Health Society, under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was held here today under the chairmanship of Vijay Kain, principal secretary, health and family welfare, Punjab, to discuss the State Programme Implementation Plan for 2008-09. A Rs 353-crore plan was proposed by the …
Americans are fond of complaining that they are "born free and taxed to death'. A new report from WHO recommends a public policy that would increase one particular form of taxation even further
