PSM News

Apr 15,2024 Medical emergencies strike without warning, leaving us vulnerable and scrambling for the best course of action. In these moments of crisis, cashless health insurance emerges as a true lifesaver. It removes the immediate financial burden associated with critical medical care, allowing patients to focus on their recovery. The health insurance market has been witnessing significant growth, with an increasing number of individuals opting for health insurance policies. The health insurance market size was valued at USD 12.86 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.55% from 2023-2030. According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), the health insurance sector in India was growing at a rate of over 20% annually. The Government of India has been taking initiatives to promote health insurance coverage across the country. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), also known as Ayushman Bharat, aims to provide health insurance coverage to over 500 million people from vulnerable households. While PMJAY primarily focuses on providing coverage for hospitalization expenses, it has also led to increased awareness about health insurance in general. Technology plays a crucial role in solving the issues of awareness and accessibilty. With the help of artificial intelligence, complex policy terms are made easier to understand. Most major insurance companies now offer user-friendly mobile apps, which let you manage your policies anytime, anywhere – right from your phone. In just a few clicks, one can buy a new policy, renew an existing one, or even make changes to the coverage. Furthermore, with the integration of AI and machine learning algorithms, insurers can now assess claims much faster and more accurately. Making healthcare even easier in India, the health insurance industry has teamed up for a game-changer called ‘Cashless Everywhere’. This means one can get cashless treatment at any hospital in their network, regardless of the insurance company. Financial strain can worsen a patient’s condition and delay crucial interventions. However, cashless health insurance eliminates this hurdle. By guaranteeing payment to hospitals within the network, it ensures patients receive immediate and necessary treatment, regardless of their ability to pay at the moment. Furthermore, cashless insurance removes financial barriers, allowing doctors to prioritize treatment without waiting for approvals or verifications. This expedites care and improves the chances of a successful outcome. The speed at which cashless insurance facilitates treatment is another crucial benefit. During a medical emergency, every minute counts. The streamlined process eliminates the need for arranging finances or securing deposits, enabling doctors to begin treatment promptly. This can be particularly life-saving in situations requiring immediate intervention. Furthermore, cashless health insurance empowers patients to choose the best course of action without financial constraints clouding their judgment. With the immediate financial burden lifted, patients can prioritize their health and focus on receiving the most effective treatment available within the network. This empowers them to make informed decisions based on their medical needs rather than financial limitations. Source: Healthworld

Jul 14,2023 New Delhi: India’s lawmakers will consider a new drugs bill next week on rules for importing, manufacturing and selling medicines, according to a parliamentary notice on Thursday, as the country seeks to draw lessons from a deadly cough syrup scandal. India’s “pharmacy of the world” image has suffered some damage after cough syrups made there were linked to the death of at least 89 children in Gambia and Uzbekistan last year. The bill is aimed at ensuring “quality, safety, efficacy, performance and clinical trial of new drugs … with the objective of highest possible regulatory standards and a transparent regulatory regime,” the notice said. It was not immediately clear what the changes were in the new Drugs, Medical Devices and Cosmetics Bill, 2023, which will replace an earlier drugs law if passed by the parliament when it reconvenes after a break on July 20. India’s $41 billion pharmaceutical industry is one the largest in the world and has for years helped provide cheaper alternatives to Western products, especially to poor and developing nations. But the recent cough syrup-related deaths and at least one other instance of an India-made eye drop being linked to three deaths in the United States, has cast a shadow on the industry’s image. India has made tests mandatory for cough syrup exports since last month. Companies that manufactured the syrups linked to deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan have denied any wrongdoing. Source: Pharma

Apr 16,2024 Mumbai: A national study of 600 patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) showed that the majority (51 per cent) had advanced disease in which four or more drugs were ineffective, according to a newly published research paper. The study, which was conducted by an IIT Bombay startup, Haystacks Analytics, along with the BMC and Pune-based D Y Patil Medical College, used the latest in TB diagnostics called whole genome sequencing . While most samples were sent from Mumbai, samples were also collected from the rest of Maharashtra and a few other states. Around 51 per cent had pre-extensively drug-resistant (pre-XDR) while 15.5 per cent had the relatively milder multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in which two of the known anti-TB drugs are ineffective. While MDR-TB and pre-XDR-TB require 18 to 24 months of treatment, the drug-sensitive form of TB requires nine months of treatment. The study, published in Microbiology Spectrum, an indexed journal of the American Society of Microbiology , has two main findings. Firstly, it proves that there is active transmission of pre-XDR TB in Mumbai among people in the productive age group; people directly get the deadlier version of the disease from an affected person. Secondly, although the government hasn’t yet included whole genome sequencing (WGS) in the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP), it appears that the medical fraternity has worked out its guidelines on when to use WGS. “We asked doctors who sent us the samples of 600 patients for the reason for seeking WGS, and found that their patient was not responding to initial treatment or they had a high degree of suspicion about MDR-TB,” said Anirvan Chatterjee of Haystacks Analytics who is the study’s main author. WGS has been recommended by World Health Organisation to quicken treatment of deadlier forms of TB: WGS can give a report of an 18-drug susceptibility test within 10 to 14 days when traditional culture test takes up to nine weeks. Chatterjee said, “Even if one out of four or five drugs given to patient doesn’t work for the patients, it will increase resistance to other drugs during the course of the treatment.” Hence, it is better if doctors find out the right drug combinations at the earliest. Dr Mangala Gomare, former executive health officer of the BMC who is one of the authors, said, “As the study found majority of the referred patients had pre-XDR, WGS should become the norm, or at least we should have proper guidelines for its use.” She added WGS would help customise treatment for patients with drug-resistant forms of the disease. As per BMC’s statistics for TB in 2023, the incidence of TB has dropped by 10 per cent between 2022 and 2023. Source: Healthworld

Apr 15,2024 Bhopal: AIIMS Bhopal recently organised a Continuing Medical Education (CME) cum Workshop focusing on biomarker interpretation in Breast Cancer. Funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), ‘DIAMOnDS’ offers free-of-cost testing of biomarkers for breast and lung cancers. AIIMS Bhopal HoD pathology, Dr Vaishali Walke, stressed the crucial role of biomarkers in breast cancer management. Dr Deepti Joshi introduced the audience to the DIAMonDs project at AIIMS Bhopal, providing free biomarker testing for breast and lung cancers. The project aims to empower individuals with knowledge on cancer signs, symptoms and the importance of regular screenings. Cancer remains a global health challenge, and initiatives like these play a vital role in enhancing treatment options and prognosis. Source: Healthworld

New Delhi: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals is recalling 6,528 bottles of a medication used to treat high blood pressure in the American market due to failed dissolution specifications, the US health regulator said. The US-based arm of the Mumbai-headquartered drug firm is recalling the affected lot of Diltiazem Hydrochloride extended-release capsules, the US Food and Drug Administration said in its latest Enforcement Report. The affected lot has been produced in India and is being recalled by New Jersey-based Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc for “failed dissolution specifications”, the USFDA said. “Out of Specification (OOS) was reported in a test of dissolution at the 12th month time point in long-term stability study,” it noted. Glenmark initiated Class II recall of the drug across the US on March 26 this year. As per the USFDA, a Class II recall is initiated in a situation in which the use of, or exposure to, a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote. India is the largest supplier of generic medicines with around 20 per cent share in the global supply by manufacturing 60,000 different generic brands across 60 therapeutic categories. The products manufactured in the country are shipped to over 200 countries around the globe, with Japan, Australia, West Europe and the US as the main destinations. India has the highest number of USFDA-compliant companies with plants outside of the US. Source: Pharma

Apr 14,2024 New Jersey: Researchers at Rutgers Health discovered that hypertensive problems during pregnancy are substantially related to deadly cardiovascular disease up to a year after birth. All hypertensive disorders that cause dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy–chronic hypertension, gestational hypertension, preeclampsia without severe features, preeclampsia with severe features, superimposed preeclampsia, and eclampsia–except gestational diabetes, were associated with a doubling in the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease compared to women with normal blood pressure. Eclampsia, a syndrome in which hypertension issues cause seizures, was linked to a roughly 58-fold increase in fatal cardiovascular disease, according to a study published in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology. “Maternal and postpartum mortality rates in the U.S. are higher than in other high-income countries and rising, but more than half of cardiovascular disease-related deaths are preventable,” said lead author Rachel Lee, a data analyst at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “This study provides new information about how each hypertensive disorder is related to fatal cardiovascular disease, so healthcare providers can monitor patients with such complications more closely and develop strategies for keeping them healthy postpartum.” The researchers used the Nationwide Readmissions Database to examine pregnancy-related mortality rates for females 15 to 54 years old from 2010 to 2018. Data from more than 33 million delivery hospitalizations identified hypertensive disorders in 11 percent of patients, but that number increased with time. In 2010, 9.4 per cent of patients in the study had hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. By 2018, that figure had risen by more than half to 14.4 per cent. “We’ve gotten better at predicting, diagnosing, and treating preeclampsia in this country, so the risk of death is falling for any individual patient with that condition,” said Cande Ananth, chief of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and senior author of the study. Source: Healthworld

Apr 09,2024 New Delhi: Nearly 3 out of 10 people in India, aged between 18 and 54 years, have never got their blood pressure measured. This has been revealed by the ICMR — National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research (ICMR-NCDIR) in a study published recently in the International Journal of Public Health (IJPH). According to the ICMR-NCDIR study, the southern parts of the country have the highest average rates of 76 per cent of those who have measured blood pressure at least once in their lifetime with stand-out states/UTs being Lakshadweep (91 per cent), Kerala (89 per cent), TN (83 per cent) and Puducherry (83 per cent). In north India, 70 per cent people said they had got their blood pressure measures, at one time or the other. In contrast, the study found, comparatively lower numbers had their BP checked in certain regions and states, such as MP (62.4 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (62 per cent) in the central region, Rajasthan (58 per cent) in the north, Odisha (56 per cent) and Jharkhand (60 per cent) in the east, Gujarat (58 per cent) in the west, and Nagaland (58 per cent) in the North-East. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), high blood pressure means the pressure in your arteries is higher than it should be. Doctors said that high blood pressure is a precursor to many critical illnesses, for example heart attack, stroke and, in the long run, kidney failure. According to the study, pre-hypertension prevalence in the country varied widely across districts, with an overall rate of 34 per cent. Source: Healthworld

Apr 13,2024 New Delhi: To make the Human papillomavirus (HPV) tests affordable to the people, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has started a study of indigenous HPV tests for cervical cancer screening in India. The study will be conducted to assess the “indigenous HPV test” by three laboratories that include AIIMS, NICPR Noida and NIRRCH Mumbai. According to Dr Neerja Bhatla, HOD, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, AIIMS, Delhi, the results will be quick and cost-effective. “There are several HPV tests that are now being manufactured in India, but we have taken three tests that are a point of care. The results will come within one hour or one and a half hours and we can plan for the next step,” Dr Bhatla said. “The results of the indigenous HPV tests study are expected to come in a few months then we will be able to say that we have internationally validated indigenous tests and then these make-in-India tests will be fit to export to any country in the world because they meet the international specifications,” said Dr Bhatla Currently, the cost of an HPV test varies between Rs 1500-2000, but with Indian kits, the cost is expected to be reduced significantly with more accuracy. “It will definitely be more cost-effective than what is in the pocket now. And secondly, it will be more cost-effective than any of the other tests because it is more accurate,” she added. “With this vision, we are launching a multi-centre study with the support of DBT-BIRAC Grand Challenges India in collaboration with WHO’s International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC). The testing will be performed at AIIMS, New Delhi, NICPR Noida and NIRRCH Mumbai,” stated AIIMS. Worldwide, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. In India, it is the second most common cancer among women after breast cancer. Every two minutes, a woman dies of cervical cancer around the world. According to GLOBOCAN, an online database that provides global cancer statistics, in 2022, an estimated 663,301 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide and about 348,874 women died from the disease. Low-middle-income countries (LMIC) like India contribute to nearly 80 per cent of the disease burden. Source: Healthworld

Apr 04,2024 New Delhi: COVID-19 replaced stroke to become the second-leading cause of death globally in 2021, causing 94 deaths per one lakh population and slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years, an international research published in The Lancet journal has found. Disrupting more than three decades of consistent improvements in life expectancy and deaths, COVID-19 reversed this long-standing progress to emerge as “one of the most defining global health events of recent history,” researchers said. In 2020, deaths around the world rose by 10.8 per cent compared to 2019, and in 2021, they rose by 7.5 per cent relative to 2020. Death rates too followed a similar trend, rising by 8.1 per cent in 2020 and an additional 5.2 per cent in 2021, the study estimated. Globally, COVID-19 and related deaths were responsible for slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021, even as reduced deaths from infections, stroke, and of newborns, among others, had helped steadily enhance life expectancy between 1990 and 2019, the researchers found. India lost 1.9 years of life expectancy due to COVID-19, resulting in a net gain of 7.9 years of life expectancy between 1990 and 2021, the study showed. “COVID-19 had a pronounced influence on the reduction in global life expectancy that occurred,” the authors wrote. The researchers forming the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Causes of Death Collaborators estimated mortality and years of life lost from 288 causes of death across 204 countries and territories for every year from 1990 until 2021. Region-wise, death rates from COVID-19 were the highest in the sub-Saharan Africa. In Latin America and the Caribbean, it was at 271 per one lakh population and almost 200 deaths per one lakh population, respectively. The rate was the lowest in southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania at around 23 deaths per one lakh population, the researchers estimated. The impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy was found to be wide-ranging in severity, with Andean Latin America seeing a loss of 4.9 years and the southern sub-Saharan Africa seeing a reduction of 3.4 years, to the east Asia, which witnessed almost no change, they said in the study. The leading cause of death worldwide in 2021 continues to be ischaemic heart disease, as was the case in 2019 and 1990, the researchers found. The disease is caused by a reduced blood flow to a certain body part due to clotting or constricting blood vessels. Stroke, at the third position amongst the top five causes of death, was found to be followed by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at fourth, and other pandemic-related mortality at fifth. COPD is a lung condition usually seen to affect heavy smokers. The GBD study, providing “latest comprehensive estimates of cause-specific mortality,” gives insights about the global landscape of disease before and during the first two years of the pandemic, revealing changes in disease-burden patterns that followed, according to the researchers, coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, US.

Apr 05,2024 New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday expressed happiness over the Delhi health minister and health secretary deciding to implement the central government statute- ‘The Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010- to regulate clinical establishments in the national capital. The Delhi government informed the high court that the health minister and the department’s secretary have agreed to forward the Delhi Health Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill to the Government of India for necessary approval. “This court is happy to note that after the last hearing the Delhi health minister and the secretary (Health and Family Welfare) have agreed that the already prepared Delhi Health Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill will be forwarded to the government of India for necessary approval. “They have further agreed that during the interregnum the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 shall be adopted in the NCT of Delhi in compliance to a 2023 letter of government of India and a 2022 order passed by the high court,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmohan PS Arora said. Taking note of the decision taken by the authorities, the high court disposed of a 2018 petition by Bejon Kumar Misra, represented by advocate Shashank Deo Sudhi, who alleged that unauthorised laboratories and diagnostic centres were functioning in the national capital with unqualified technicians and giving incorrect reports to patients. “Accordingly taking note of this decision of the minister and the secretary, the petition is closed,” the bench said and made it clear that the law will be implemented within two weeks. The high court had on March 21 warned Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj and Health Secretary SB Deepak Kumar, who were present during the proceedings, of sending them to jail for their failure to comply with judicial orders on enactment of a law to regulate clinical establishments. The bench had said the minister and the secretary were “servants of government” and can’t have “large egos”. The petitioner had argued before the court that pathological labs in the city were unregulated and posed a threat to the lives of citizens. The plea said, “Such illegal labs continue to mushroom in and around Delhi-NCT and it can be easily estimated that the total number of such illegal pathological and diagnostic labs can be anywhere between 20,000 and 25,000, and every street in the capital has such illegal pathological labs.” Source: Healthworld