Health & Wellness Community

At the international conference on family planning held in Pattaya, Thailand, India won the Leadership in Family Planning (EXCELL) Awards-2022 in the “country category.” Mansukh Mandaviya, the minister of health and family welfare, tweeted that “India wins the prestigious EXCELL award – Leadership in Family Planning by @ICFP2022. The award is a recognition of India’s efforts under PM @NarendraModi Ji’s leadership towards ensuring access to quality family planning choices based on right information and reliable services.” With this, India became the only nation to win the Leadership in Family Planning (EXCELL) Awards-2022 in the “country category.” In a statement issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, it was stated that India had achieved outstanding progress in expanding access to modern contraceptive techniques and adopting them, allowing couples to make educated decisions about family planning. Data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5 reflect these. According to NFHS-5 data, the country’s total contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) rose sharply from NFHS4 data’s 54% to 67%. The percentage of unmet family planning requirements has been significantly decreased, from 13% to 9%. Additionally, the unmet requirement for spacing has decreased to fewer than 10%. The overall “demand satisfied” for family planning among Indian currently married women aged 15 to 49 rose from 66% in 2015–16 to 76% in 2019–21, exceeding the global SDG target of 75% set for 2030. According to NFHS-5 statistics, 68% of users of modern method contraceptives get their method from the public health sector, reflecting the government’s priority on enhancing simple and inexpensive access to modern contraceptives. According to the statement, Mission Parivar Vikas, one of the government’s flagship initiatives to address unmet family planning requirements, has also played a significant role in the development. India is making progress toward attaining the SDG targets for women’s and maternal health, as seen by its initiatives to improve family planning. “The International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) has served as a strategic inflection point for the global reproductive health community, providing a global stage for more than 120 countries worldwide, organizations, and individuals to make important commitments and celebrate achievements as the world’s largest scientific conclave on family planning and reproductive health. The event was attended by more than 3500 delegates physically and tens of thousands on the virtual platform,” the statement reads. Source: ANI

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s authentic documents sharing platform, DigiLocker, has successfully finished the second stage of integration with the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Vaccination records, doctor’s prescriptions, lab results, hospital discharge summaries, and other health documents may now be stored and accessed on the safe cloud-based storage platform of DigiLocker. Prior to now, DigiLocker had finished level 1 integration with ABDM, adding the ability for its 13 crore users to create Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA). With this most recent connection, users can now utilise DigiLocker as a Personal Health Records (PHR) app. Additionally, ABHA holders can use DigiLocker to link their health records from other ABDM registered healthcare providers, including hospitals and labs. Older health records can be scanned and uploaded by users to the app. Even ABDM-registered medical practitioners can access some of their records. Dr. RS Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority (NHA), emphasised the benefit that users will receive from this integration when he remarked, “Under the ABDM, we are building an inter-operable health ecosystem. Dr. RS Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority (NHA), emphasised the benefit that users will receive from this integration when he remarked, “Under the ABDM, we are building an inter-operable health ecosystem. The different applications from both the public and private sectors partners integrating with ABDM are helping expand the reach of the scheme to more users and adding more functionalities. DigiLocker is a trusted and popular app to access authentic documents. Therefore, it is a significant development as users would now get to use it as a PHR app and get the benefits of paperless record keeping.” Abhishek Singh, MD & CEO, Digital India Corporation, commented on the integration by saying, “We are proud to extend the benefits of ABDM to our 130 million registered users. The platform has already helped generate close to 85 thousand ABHA numbers. With the health locker integration, we’re positive that more people would be able to easily link and manage their health records digitally. DigiLocker aims to be the preferred health locker for ABHA users.” All DigiLocker registered users can now access the health locker services.

As part of the proposed free trade agreement with Britain, India is looking at expanding market access for its pharmaceutical items in the UK, an official said on Friday. The official added that a leaked chapter of the agreement on intellectual property (IP), which has been circulated on several portals, has been altered from its original form by the UK. “The best part in the proposed agreement is that both sides have highlighted their red lines and sensitivities. Ever-greening and touching manufacturing of generic medicines is completely non-negotiable,” the official added. In a trade agreement with the UAE, India has already increased market access for the domestic pharmaceutical industry. Source: PTI

Johnson & Johnson announced on Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved its therapy for the treatment of a specific form of multiple myeloma, providing patients with the incurable blood cancer with yet another treatment option. According to the company, Tecvayli, a brand name for J&J’s teclistamab, is approved for treating individuals with multiple myeloma that is difficult to treat or has returned after receiving four or more prior lines of certain types of therapies. According to a company representative, the therapy will go on sale around November 4 and will have a list price of $39,500 each month. The total cost would be between $355,000 and $395,000 for a nine to ten-month course. A bispecific antibody called Tecvayli is designed to cause the body’s immune system to focus on identifying and eliminating cancer cells. It is the first drug in its class to have multiple myeloma approval. However, the approval comes with a boxed warning for neurologic damage and cytokine release syndrome, a disease where the immune system reacts more aggressively than it should. Other approved therapies for multiple myeloma include GSK Plc’s Blenrep and competitor Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Abecma, but many patients experience a relapse after stopping treatment, creating a major unmet need that pharmaceutical companies can capitalise on. The European drug regulator gave J&J’s therapy provisional approval in August. Multiple myeloma is a common form of blood cancer that starts in the bone marrow and can spread throughout the body, although being rare compared to breast or prostate cancer. The company claims that more men than women are affected by the cancer, which is normally discovered in patients between the ages of 65 and 74. The American Cancer Society predicts that this year, close to 35,000 new instances of multiple myeloma would likely be diagnosed throughout the US.

At a ceremony in Ahmednagar, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, the union minister of health and welfare, officially opened a number of health infrastructure projects. The Dr. Vikhe Patil Nuclear Medicine Center is one of the initiatives, along with three primary healthcare centres (PHCs) in Ahmednagar that were virtually inaugurated. India is moving toward a prosperous and healthy future, according to the health minister, due to investments in health infrastructure. Dr. Mandaviya formally inaugurated construction on the main building and staff quarters, which were expected to cost Rs. 702 lakh. The main building and staff quarters of the PHC in Kharda, which are expected to cost Rs 560 lakh, and the main building of the PHC in Padhegaon, which is expected to cost around Rs 214 lakh, were both inaugurated by the health minister. The Dr. Vikhe Patil Nuclear Medicine Centre is equipped with resources for both cancer diagnosis and treatment. The facility, which will serve residents of Ahmednagar, Beed, Nashik, Aurangabad, Solapur, and nearby Pune districts, is the first of its sort in the district. Speaking at the ceremony, Dr. Mandaviya noted that because only a healthy population can contribute to the nation’s progress, the government has linked health and development. “The focus needs to be on wellness as well as treatment. the Union Minister of Health said. We must take steps to prevent illnesses from ever occurring in our society. The government has been emphasising health and wellness centres for this reason. The Minister also mentioned the need for any policy to be proactive. Along with expanding medical facilities, the government is also boosting the number of medical schools and MBBS seats. He went on to say that by the time the nation’s young people graduate from medical schools, the nation will have developed into a centre for medical tourism, treating patients from all over the globe. Seeking the wellbeing of everyone has been the guiding principle of India’s worldview. Dr. Mandaviya noted that roughly three out of every ten scientists and research scholars worldwide are Indian when discussing the Government of India’s research policy. He said that regardless of whether they are from a private or public institution, the government’s research policy is to encourage and support talented youth who want to pursue new research ideas. According to Dr. Mandaviya, India wants to lead the world in innovation and research. In a virtual address to the audience, Anna Hazare thanked the Indian government for building Ahmednagar’s health infrastructure, especially the village of Ralegan Siddhi. The National Health Mission has completed projects worth Rs 1347 lakh in the Ahmednagar district during the last two years, according to Dr. Sujay Vikhe Patil, Member of Parliament for Ahmednagar and Trustee of the Dr. Vithalrao Vikhe Patil Foundation. The area is expected to see the completion of a number of health infrastructure projects totaling more than Rs 47 crore during the next year, according to him as well. Additionally, present at the ceremony were Dr. Sadashiv Lokhande, Member of Parliament for Shirdi Constituency, Dr. Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Minister of Revenue, Animal Husbandry, and Dairy Development for Maharashtra.

Jaipur district collector Prakash Rajpurohit gave all officials the go-ahead to ensure that enough provisions were made for the effective prevention and control of dengue, chikungunya, and other seasonal infections due to escalating dengue concerns in the state. According to a press release from the district collector’s office, “Besides making adequate arrangement, the district collector has ordered to improve the progress of work under the chief minister’s free medicine scheme.”  On Monday, the district health committee was being addressed by the collector in the collectorate auditorium. He also stated during the conference that all primary health centres in the district should have better basic amenities, and that all primary health centres should have timely medication distribution. Ghee raid: Early on Monday, a team organised by the district government raided a few dhabas on Ajmer Road in Jaipur as part of “The War Campaign for Shuddh.” Officials have seized two well-known brands of ghee. 549 kg of fake ghee in total were seized, and the suspects were charged under the Security Standards Act. Source: Economic Times

The COVID-19 shot, which Oxford University researchers and AstraZeneca Plc jointly developed, suffered a setback on Tuesday when first tests on humans did not yield the anticipated protection levels. In the trial, which was in the first of usually three phases of clinical testing, only a small percentage of individuals experienced an antibody response in the respiratory mucous membranes, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the University of Oxford. Additionally, the blood immune response was less strong than the one from a vaccine shot in the arm. Nasal spray vaccines against the coronavirus have received a lot of attention from researchers around the world because the approach is thought to have the potential to prevent infection as well as disease because it may elicit an immune response directly in the airways, where the virus enters the body. The procedure would also be less painful and more controllable than injections. Products that are administered via the airways have previously received regulatory approval in China and India. The COVID-19 nasal spray vaccine from Bharat Biotech was approved by the Indian Health Minister last month, and the inhaled COVID-19 vaccine from CanSino Biologics Inc. was given emergency permission by China’s drug regulator last month. While the results of Bharat’s trial have not yet been released, CanSino claims that studies show that their vaccine, administered using a nebulizer device, can develop robust immunity to successfully contain the infection. Twelve volunteers who had previously completed a conventional two-dose immunisation course by injection were also enrolled in the British trial together with 30 previously unvaccinated people. According to Sandy Douglas, main investigator of the experiment at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, “The nasal spray did not perform as well in this study as we had hoped.” “We believe that delivery of vaccines to the nose and lungs remains a promising approach, but this study suggests there are likely to be challenged in making nasal sprays a reliable option,” she continued. According to the statement, no significant adverse events or safety issues were reported throughout the trial, which was funded by AstraZeneca.  

The government of Maharashtra will soon begin providing Khilkhilat Ambulance services for infants, according to Mangal Prabhat Lodha, a cabinet minister for the state. According to Lodha, these ambulances are specifically made to deliver the mother and the newborn child to their houses. “On the line of Gujarat government, Maharashtra government to also start Khilkhilat Ambulance services for newly born baby, these ambulances are specially designed to drop the mother and the newborn child at their home.” said Lodha, who also serves as the Minister of Women and Child Development in Maharashtra. This ambulance would have a distinctive siren-like Khilkhilat, and Lodha continued, “Usually, we see newborn babies start crying by hearing the sound of an ambulance siren. Initially, we are planning to bring it to suburban Mumbai at five places and after seeing the response will decide to launch it completely.” “These Khilkhilat ambulances will be designed by keeping in the minds little babies and the main motive behind this is to give happiness to the family and babies as it’s a special moment for the family to have a new baby as a new member in the family,” he concluded. Mangal Prabhat Lodha is also the guardian minister for Mumbai suburban district. A safe return home is the goal of the Khilkhilat service, which is free for mothers and infants. The project, Vatsalaya, situated in Maharasthra, was inspired by the initiative, which was launched in Gujarat in September 2012. The Khilkhilat ambulances include a nutrition kit for the newborn kid, a schedule of vaccinations to be administered at particular intervals, and details about the government hospitals nearby.

The first malaria vaccine made in India that was developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and produced by Serum Institute has been approved for sale to the UK, according to official sources, who spoke on Thursday. Two lakh doses of the vaccine may be sent, according to authorization from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI). According to official sources quoted by PTI, Prakash Kumar Singh, director of government and regulatory affairs at Serum Institute of India (SII), applied to DCGI on September 27 to request authorization to export the malaria vaccine. “SII has developed the vaccine against malaria under leadership of our CEO Dr Adar C Poonawalla. We have been relentlessly working to make available made-in-India and world-class vaccines against malaria to our country and world at large,” an official source quoted Singh as having said in the application. At the moment, GSK is the manufacturer of the sole malaria vaccine that is accessible worldwide. According to the sources, the SII and the Jenner Institute of the University of Oxford worked together in 2020 to manufacture and develop the malaria vaccine for mass distribution. The vaccine trial results in Nanoro, Burkina Faso, which involved 409 children, showed that three initial doses followed by a booster after a year provided up to 80% protection against the disease, they stated. Trials in advanced stages are currently being conducted in African nations by the SII and Oxford University.