Over the past decade, India’s drug exports have doubled to over $24 billion per year. While its long-established and rapidly growing generics industry has earned the country the accolade of ‘pharmacy of the world’, Indian companies are now also running clinical trials and developing new innovative products, including one of the world’s first nasal […]
Tag: India
India’s rapid urbanization demands healthy urban planning: an opportunity to revive the WHO healthy cities approach?
India has been transitioning from rural to quasi-urban due to rapid urbanization over the last two decades and is expected to continue in the coming years. It is estimated that 43.2% of India’s population, i.e., 675 million people, will reside in Urban conglomerates by 2035 (UN-Habitat 2022). While urbanization has provided economic growth and […]
Primary care physicians and clinical courage – stories from tribal Rajasthan, India
A physician practising in a remote and resource constrained setting is frequently faced with clinical situations which fall in the grey zone at the fringe of her/his competence and comfort level. In such situations, most doctors choose to refer patients to next level of care citing the poor infrastructure, and absence of the needed […]
Lessons from COVID-19: Strengthening the public health system in India or accelerating privatisation?
When Manisha’s husband passed away in a private hospital from Maharashtra state in October 2020 she was given a handwritten bill of Rs 14 lakh (18,892 USD). The hospital withheld his body for ten hours till the dues were settled. Sandeep Dhande was given a bill of 1.5 lakh (2,040 USD) on a piece […]
Coming together to fill the gaps in an inequitable crisis: A story from the second wave of COVID-19 in India
When will things get back to normal? A question we have asked since COVID-19 hit us in 2020. Who imagined it would last for more than a year, and return in waves as deadly as the second wave in India, which was nothing less than a nightmare. Practically every family was suffering, grieving, pleading; […]
COVID-19 vaccination in India: we need equity
Just a few days after starting its own COVID-19 vaccination program , India provided vaccines as grant- in-aid to other countries1 . This was in sharp contrast to some high-income countries which stockpile vaccines, and block proposals to suspend intellectual property rights in World Trade Organisation2. India now is in the midst of a […]
How the World Trade Organization could facilitate access to COVID-19 health technologies?
Governments have faced difficult decisions over the past months, but the decision to remove unnecessary barriers to accessing COVID-19 health technologies like vaccines, diagnostics and treatments should be an obvious one. This decision is currently under debate among member states of the World Trade Organization, who are considering a proposal to waive global intellectual property […]
COVID-19 in India: an epidemic in congested cities
WHO declared COVID-19 as Global Pandemic on March 12, 2020, at present, it is devasting entire World with 5691,790 cases and 355,629 deaths [1]. India reported the first case of COVID-19 in end of January 2020, and total reported cases crossed 1,58,000 cases with 4,534 deaths on May 27, 2020. COVID-19 is primarily transmitted […]
Towards a more inclusive model of health technology assessment
The buzz-word of evidence informed decision making is all pervasive in the health policy and systems space. However, it is easier said than done. To facilitate evidence informed decision making, the Government of India established a formal institutional structure known as Health Technology Assessment in India (HTAIn) under Department of Health Research (DHR) in […]
Public Health Law in times of COVID-19 : perspective from India
About two months after the WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, India dived into a 21 day lockdown. For the general public, daily life came to a halt ; but for our health care workers, it was time to suit up for the battle. With the responsibility of the health of 1.3 billion Indians […]