(In the weekly Health Matters newsletter, Ramya Kannan writes about getting to good health, and staying there. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox.)
The questions of drugs, real and spurious, has come up in the healthcare sector this week, with reports of drugs not meeting quality standards, pharmaceutical companies claiming that these drugs were all counterfeits, one company issuing a ‘clarification’ on the marketing of a new drug it has manufactured, and all of it together, casting doubts in the minds of those who need to use these drugs.
India is the pharmacy of the world – it is one of the biggest producers and suppliers of generic medicines and vaccines globally. But over the course of the past few years, multiple issues have been flagged with regard to the quality of drugs – in 2022, 66 children in Gambia died, reportedly after consuming a contaminated cough syrup made by an Indian manufacturer. And this was not an isolated instance – two months after the Gambia deaths, Uzbekistan reported 18 deaths, and there have been several cases of deaths in India as well.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has begun to take action: a popular anti-cold cocktail was banned for children under four years of age last year, and this week, Bindu Shajan Perappadan reports, the CDSCO flagged that samples of more than 50 drugs, including commonly-used paracetamol, Pan D, calcium, vitamin D3 supplements, and anti-diabetes pills, were “not of standard quality,” as part of its monthly drug alerts.
This alert immediately led to a response from pharmaceutical companies: firms including Sun Pharma, Torrent Pharma and Glenmark, categorically stated that the drugs tested by the CDSCO were counterfeits and not manufactured by them, and listed measures they have taken, including QR codes on products for customers to verify authenticity. But this of course, naturally leads to the bigger question: what is the government doing to combat the problem of spurious drugs in the country? We’ll keep you updated on this issue.
Continuing on with the drugs saga, we reported last week, on drug firm Entod Pharmaceuticals’s tussle with the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) over its claims that its eye drops would ensure that patients would not need reading glasses anymore: this week, the pharma company issued a clarification stating that the eye drops “were not intended to replace reading glasses” and assured the DGCI that it would only make “approved claims”.
It’s not just in India that drugs are being questioned: the European Union this week called for the suspension of approval for Pfizer’s medicine to treat sickle cell disease, after a clinical trial showed a higher number of deaths occurred with the drug, Oxbryta than with placebo treatment. While we’re on the subject of drugs, do read this fascinating piece by C. Aravinda on tracing the journey from the myths surrounding treatment to modern science when it comes to rabies – an issue of increasing concern as the stray dog population in India explodes.
And, in another drug-related development, the global threat of antimicrobial resistance is looming, and while a lot has been reported on the subject of late, it’s not nearly enough: as the World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns, if the situation is not brought under control, we risk winding the clock back to the pre-antibiotic era. But here’s some good news on this front: R. Prasad writes that with the successful launch of Operation Amrith to completely stop the over-the-counter sale of antibiotics without prescriptions by the end of 2024, Kerala has seen a sharp decline in the irrational use of antibiotics in people. But with Kerala importing poultry from outside the State, will this queer the pitch?
In more good news when it comes to medicines, a drug, approved in the United States, is the first new form of treatment for schizophrenia in decades, and has experts excited. And in welcome news from India, Shilpa Elizabeth reports, a Bengaluru startup aims to solve the cold-chains logistics problem in India with a portable battery-powered cooling device that can carry medical supplies to hinterlands with limited electricity access.
Speaking of good news, Union Minister of State for Health, Anupriya Patel, who was at the United Nations meeting that was held in New York last week, said that new annual HIV infections have decreased by 44 per cent in India since 2010, outperforming the global reduction rate of 39 per cent.
Moving on to another issue that has made headlines all week, the death of 26-year-old Anna Sebastian Perayil, who was employed at Ernst & Young, has brought to the spotlight once again, the effects overwork can have on health. In a stark reminder of the burden on Indian women, Sambavi Parthasarathy and Vignesh Radhakrishnan write that young professional women in India work 55 hours a week, the longest hours globally – the younger the professional, the more hours they work. A follow-up story found that, as expected, working women do not enjoy a commensurate reduction in the amount of household work they do, spending 5.8 hours a day on this.
Before we sign off, let’s do a quick recap of issues that we’ve been closely following: after India became the third non-African country to report a case of clade Ib Mpox infection recently, the Union Health Ministry has directed that all suspected Mpox cases be isolated and strict infection prevention and control measures be put in place. Meanwhile, with two back-to-back Nipah deaths in less than two months, Malappuram district in Kerala is in the throes of a social-health crisis, writes Abdul Natheef Laha. Also in Kerala, the tricky amoebic meningoencephalitis has resurfaced, and testing has now been expanded, reports C. Maya. Remember that contentious Banaras Hindu University study on the safety of Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin? The journal Drug Safety that published the paper in May this year has now ‘retracted’ it. This comes after a defamation suit was filed against the researchers and editor of the journal by the maker of the vaccine, Bharat Biotech.
For our tailpiece this week, we have Maitri Porecha writing about a less-discussed condition related to women’s sexual health, vaginismus, and new startups that are beginning to address this.
If you have time, do also read these pieces:
Priya Chockalingam writes on proactively modifying day-to-day lifestyle choices to curb the burgeoning global heart disease epidemic.
Two sets of guidelines have been released by the Union Health Ministry this week: one on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which the Ministry said was becoming a silent epidemic, and another set of guidelines on passive euthanasia or withdrawal of life support in terminal ill patients.
For explainers we have Jacob Koshy on whether or not animal fat was present in the Tirupati laddus, and I write and discuss, on a podcast, about Body Roundness Index (BMI), a health metric, and whether it could replace the Body Mass Index (BMI).
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Published - October 01, 2024 04:07 pm IST
