Sunday, 11 March 2012

IPV given with needle and syringe ID more effective than with a needle free device

         Dear friends,
                             After they slowed down the process to pass on the low cost benefit of antirabies vaccination, they are now trying to sell costly inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) and slow down the introduction of low cost intradermal  IPV, to benefit multinationals.
Moreover when pressure is rising to introduce low cost IPV, they are trying to chip in many needle free devices to help some other multinationals to make programme costs further high and poor countries having to pay more.
Below are some studies, just copy paste the link for more understanding,
       
The immunity using needle free jet devices is not optimum as is evident in the study in Cuba, the link,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20350164

But IPV given with needle and syringe  is equally effective as is evident in a study in Philippines, the link,

http://ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712%2811%2900218-9/abstract?elsca1=etoc&elsca2=email&elsca3=1201-9712_201202_16_2&elsca4=infectious_diseases

Randomized controlled study of fractional doses of inactivated poliovirus vaccine administered intradermally with a needle in the Philippines

So, we need to explore low cost intradermal IPV with needle and syringe as a viable option, to include devices will make the programme more costly and unviable.

Thanks,

Friday, 13 January 2012

My editorial in International Health Policies on Rio declaration

........................In the Indian context, defining poverty as 'people earning less than half a dollar per day' only shows that we are currently reducing poverty by reducing the poverty line, and this in a situation where inflation is steadily rising. Reducing poverty by juggling statistics is mere politics and not a serious attempt to deal with poverty. India’s Human Development Index is still slightly better than Bangladesh's HDI, but as Dreze and Sen mentioned in a piece in Outlook last week, Bangladesh has overtaken India in terms of a range of basic social indicators by now, in spite of a much lower per capita income.
The HDI in India has risen only slightly over the past few decades, in spite of the economic boom. A widening gap between the rich and the poor and massive corruption are some of the reasons for this slow progress.............

http://e.itg.be/ihp/archives/ihp-news-144-social-determinants-of-health-in-india

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Drug trials represent a new colonialism?

Western pharmaceutical companies have seized on India over the past five years as a testing ground for drugs – making the most of a huge population and loose regulations which help dramatically cut research costs for lucrative products to be sold in the West. The relationship is so exploitative that some believe it represents a new colonialism.
Can we do something for mutual benefit or stop this practice?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/without-consent-how-drugs-companies-exploit-indian-guinea-pigs-6261919.html?mid=52

Sunday, 13 November 2011

Tuesday, 8 November 2011

What development and high GDP means to the poor in India?

The problem with counting the poor is the target given to each state, that you would have these many poors only. How can they define poors themselves without doing an actual survey? This is farce and totally unjustified. States are redefining povery lines, so a poor in one state may not be a poor in another, why this discrimination?

Below is how the Outlook understand this in analytical manner;

The pitfalls of “BPL targeting” have become increasingly clear in recent years. First, there is no reliable way of identifying poor households, and the exclusion errors are enormous: at least three national surveys indicate that, around 2004-05, about half of all poor households in rural India did not have a “BPL card”. Second, India’s poverty line is abysmally low, so that even if all the BPL cards were correctly and infallibly allocated to poor households, large numbers of people who are in dire need of social support would remain excluded from the system. In 2009-10, for instance, the official poverty line in Delhi was around Rs 30 per person per day. This is just about enough to buy one kilogram of rice and a one-way bus ticket that would take you three stops down the road. Third, BPL targeting is extremely divisive, and undermines the unity and strength of public demand for functional social services, making a collaborative right into a divisive privilege......
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278843

Thursday, 3 November 2011

Innovations for poor: manual scavenging- Can we do something? Any Ideas ...

Innovations for poor: manual scavenging- Can we do something? Any Ideas ...: 'One of the darkest blots on our development process is the fact that even after 64 years of independence, we still have the heinous practic...

manual scavenging- Can we do something? Any Ideas !

'One of the darkest blots on our development process is the fact that even after 64 years of independence, we still have the heinous practice of manual scavenging. Today, I would like you to pledge that this scourge will be eliminated from every corner of our country in the next six months.'
Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh's speech on 16th June, 2011.....

But, what is the reality?

http://www.alrc.net/doc/mainfile.php/hrc9/515/

http://www.altlawforum.org/labour/research-and-publications/Aalur%20Tq%20report%20-1.doc/view?searchterm=manual scavenging workers

http://www.altlawforum.org/labour/research-and-publications/Aalur%20Tq%20report%20-1.doc/view?searchterm=manual scavenging workers