Month: August 2020

Categories
COVID-19 Government Guidelines Medicine & Health Techniques

‘India to become healthcare provider to the world’

 

‘India to become a healthcare provider to the world’
The Medical device sector has a crucial role to play in improving accessibility and affordability of healthcare especially with regard to the availability of precision devices stated D V Sadananda Gowda , Union Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers during his inaugural address at the 12th MedTech Global Summit .

We now must turn our attention to correct our high import dependence. Our pharmaceutical sector will become Atmanirbhar in a short period of 2-3 years, not only domestically but globally providing low cost and high-quality equipment and drugs.

Our Product Linked Investment schemes will attract cumulative investment of INR 78,000 crore and generate 250,000 in employment, with Med tech attracting at least 40,000 crore and employing 140,000 new employees.

The government is committed to providing low cost, affordable health care to every citizen through PMJAY and Ayushman Bharat with both schemes significantly reducing out of pocket expenditure for our citizens.

The medical device industry has labored and helped prepare indigenous products in our fight against COVID, with our production of ventilators proof of the success of Indian indignity stated Piyush Goyal.

It showed to the world that India can be a trusted partner when it comes to global engagement and global trade. This is the time to leverage the tools of technology to recharge our health systems with the power of: Access, Awareness and Availability, he added.

Chandrajit Banerjee , Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry expressed his gratitude towards the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the phenomenal work undertaken through the recent PLI schemes launched for bulk drug parks and med tech parks. These are the progressive steps required for us to become Aatma Nirbhar.

The Industry and Government need to work together to steer India to become global suppliers of medical Technology. There should be a greater streamlining of the regulatory process, a single national Med-Tech policy and a signal nodal body to govern and support the sector is imperative, he added.

In this pandemic, all the healthcare ecosystem has come together, and have eliminated the need for importing stated Dr Naresh Trehan , Chairman, CII National Committee on Healthcare & Chairman & Managing Director, Medanta – The Medicity. In order to further move up the value chain, Med-Tech, the entire healthcare spectrum, Scientific Intuitions and Government need to be brought on to the same platform to allow for convergence. We need to make a plan to take to the government so that all stakeholders across can help collaborate and innovate.

Source:  http://Source: http://www.smetimes.in/smetimes/news/top-stories/2020/Aug/24/india-healthcare53157.html

 

Categories
Medicine & Health

High blood sugar may limit aerobic exercise capacity

A study finds that hyperglycemia makes it more difficult for people to increase their aerobic capacity.

Regular aerobic exercise provides various health benefits, which heighten as a person increases their aerobic capacity. Doctors recommend this form of exercise to help control diabetes, but people with diabetes often have trouble improving this capacity.

Now, scientists at the Joslin Diabetes Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, in Boston, MA, have published a new study that may explain why.

Hyperglycemia, or higher-than-normal levels of blood sugar, may prevent people from increasing their aerobic capacity and gaining the health benefits that this type of exercise can provide.

The researchers have observed this diminished effect of aerobic exercise in humans with chronic hyperglycemia when blood sugar levels are within the prediabetes range, as well as in mouse models.

Hyperglycemic mice

“The idea behind this study was to see: If we induce high blood sugar in mice, will we impair their ability to improve their aerobic fitness?” says Prof. Lessard.

In designing the study, the researchers hoped to learn more about the mechanisms behind this potential effect, in an effort to find new ways to help people with hyperglycemia boost their fitness levels.

Initially, Prof. Lessard and colleagues increased blood sugar levels in two groups of mice:

  • The first group received a Western diet high in saturated fat and sugar. The mice became hyperglycemic and gained weight.
  • The second group consumed a diet with less sugar and fat and did not gain weight. However, these mice acquired hyperglycemia as a result of modifications that caused them to produce less insulin.

The mice in both groups exercised equally, running roughly 500 kilometers, or about 311 miles, over the course of the study.

Still, compared with a control group that had lower blood sugar levels, both sets of hyperglycemic mice failed to gain significant aerobic capacity.

The fact that both groups developed the condition suggests that the effect is related to blood sugar, not obesity or the effects of insulin.

Mouse muscles

According to Prof. Lessard, muscle tissues typically change as a result of aerobic exercise, and muscle fibers become more efficient at using oxygen. “We also grow new blood vessels,” says Prof. Lessard, “to allow more oxygen to be delivered to the muscle, which helps to increase our aerobic fitness levels.”

However, the researchers saw no such muscle adaptation in the hyperglycemic mice.

They suggest that high levels of sugar are interrupting the remodeling of muscle by altering proteins in the space between muscle cells, where new blood vessels would typically have formed.

The study authors add that another possible factor may be a malfunctioning of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway. This signaling pathway may act as a molecular switch that programs a muscle to react to a particular type of exercise.

In earlier research using hyperglycemic mice, Prof. Lessard found that the JNK pathway may get this wrong. She determined that “The muscles of hyperglycemic animals have bigger fibers and fewer blood vessels, which is more typical of strength training, rather than aerobic training.”

People with hyperglycemia

Prof. Lessard and her team followed up with clinical tests in humans and found similar results. They also identified one group for whom the issue was particularly acute.

The researchers saw that individuals with impaired glucose intolerance — in which blood sugar levels rise with the consumption of glucose — had the least increases in aerobic capacity.

This was, at least in part, due to the malfunction of the JNK pathway. “Looking at how their muscles responded to a single bout of typical aerobic exercise, we also saw that those with the lowest glucose tolerance had the highest activation of the JNK signaling pathway, which blocks aerobic adaptations,” says Prof. Lessard.

Recommendations

To that end, the team recommends that individuals with hyperglycemia consider following a diet designed to lower blood sugar levels. In addition, diabetes drugs can help get these levels under control.

The researcher emphasizes that aerobic exercise has health benefits, even when taking into account the inhibiting effect of high blood sugar, saying:

“Regular aerobic exercise is still a key recommendation for maintaining health in people with or without hyperglycemia.”

Prof. Lessard also notes that other forms of exercise, such as strength training, can help with health and fitness.

Source: https://bit.ly/31kpG09

Categories
Government Guidelines Medical Equipments Medical Updates Medicine & Health

Emerging Opportunity for Medical Equipment Manufacturing in India

The central governments’ initiatives on national health programs like Ayushman Bharat are propelling India to become a nation with advanced diagnostic facilities thus boosting the prospects of medical equipment manufacturing in several states

The COVID lockdown situation and the call by the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi towards becoming more self-reliant or Aatma Nirbhar has brought in several opportunities to many sectors, prominent among them being the medical device manufacturing in India.

The cost of healthcare in India is almost 35 per cent more competitive as compared to developed countries such as the US and UK. That is the reason many foreign tourists visit India to get affordable treatment. There is also an exponential rise in the domestic demand in the preventive healthcare segment. This segment has been growing at 18 per cent CAGR and expected to be worth US$100 billion in the next 2-3 years. The current demand and supply-side dynamics do provide a huge opportunity for local manufacturers for producing medical devices in India.

At the moment, India imports almost 85-90 per cent of the sophisticated medical devices from other countries, prominent among them being China. In the year, 2019-2020, medical equipment worth almost Rs 4560 crores was imported from China. India as a market for medical devices is among the top 20 countries in the world, worth almost US$11 billion. With several initiatives launched by the Central Government such as the Ayushman Bharat scheme – to provide access to affordable health care services to all, this market is expected to grow to US$50 billion in the next five years. Presently, local medical equipment manufacturers are mostly involved in the production of low-end products for domestic and as well as international consumption. After Japan, China and South Korea, India is the fourth largest market in Asia with the potential to grow at 28 per cent.

Niti Aayog, the think tank body of the Government of India, has started working out a roadmap for the promotion of medical equipment manufacturers in the country. The Government has also allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investments (FDI) in companies manufacturing medical devices through the automatic route. The Indian Government has already chalked out plans intending to remove all roadblocks and offer tailor-made solutions to attract investment to make India a manufacturing hub for medical devices.

Medical device manufacturing comprises of five broad segments, including patient aids like pacemakers and hearing devices, dental products like braces and dentures, MRI and other diagnostic machines, prosthetics like knee implants and artificial joints, and disposal & consumables like needles and syringes.

Under initiatives like Make in India, several state governments have taken up the onus of setting up medical device manufacturing parks in their respective states and have got the approval from the Government of India to do so. There would be six medical devices manufacturing clusters in the country in states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Sikkim. These clusters would provide a huge boost to domestic manufacturing of high-end medical devices at a lower cost and significantly enhance job creation.

The unfolding crisis has displayed the potential of Indian manufacturers to scale up the manufacturing to meet the higher demand for PPE kits, ventilators, and other lifesaving equipment. However, there are a lot of challenges that the Government needs to address to make the country a hub of manufacturing medical equipment. Firstly, there is a need to set necessary infrastructures like supply chain and logistics channels. There is an irregular power supply in several parts of the country which impairs the manufacturing process. The Government also needs to take steps to reduce the high cost of finance for local manufacturers.

The medical equipment manufacturers have been long demanding to reduce the effective rate of Goods and Service Tax (GST) on medical devices to 5 per cent from the present 18 per cent. Due to the high GST rate, it becomes more advantageous to import the equipment than manufacturers the same in the country. There is also a need to rationalize custom duty for necessary components and transitional inputs going into the production of medical equipment in India. It will further help if the government begins to incentivize high-end medical equipment manufacturers in order to promote the production of these devices in the country.

There is also a need for the Government to set up import restrictions and duty protection on the import of medical devices in India. This would restrict imports and at the same time, provide a boost to local manufacturers. There is a need to increase the skilling and training programs to tackle the shortage of talented and trained people in the sector. The Government also needs to put in place a robust regulatory framework to maintain high-quality standards and create a healthcare ecosystem in India.

India has some of the best doctors in the world and state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, the strong foothold in the medical devices manufacturing sector will only further reduce the cost of treatment and at the same time enhance the country’s image as a global healthcare destination.

Source: https://bit.ly/3i2bzDe

 

Categories
COVID-19 Medical Updates Medicine & Health

Delhi: 2nd sero survey from today, 15k samples targeted

New Delhi: The second round of the serological survey in the capital will begin on Saturday, with the authorities targeting to cover nearly 15,000 people to analyse the prevalence of antibodies in Delhiites in different districts. The tests will have to be completed by August 7.

All arrangements have been made in the 11 districts to start the exercise, which will be crucial to find out if Delhi is heading towards herd immunity from novel coronavirus. The first serological survey in Delhi, in which the sample size was 21,387, revealed nearly a quarter of its population had developed antibodies.

Teams of lab technicians, doctors, civil defence volunteers and ASHA workers will go to selected areas to collect samples in the morning. Earlier, the sero survey was scheduled to be completed by the fifth day of every month, but the deadline has been extended this time due to festivals.

The districts have been given different targets of sample collection. North West district, which collected the largest number of samples at 3,548 during the last survey, will have to collect 2,200 samples, and West district 2,150 samples against 2,373 in the previous one. Central district, which collected 2,702 samples earlier, has been asked to gather 1,548 samples.

Sandeep Kumar Mishra, district magistrate of North West district, said he had directed all 16 collection teams to ensure multi-stage systematic random representative sampling as per the guidelines. “It is critical in projecting the accurate prevalence of antibodies in people. It is more important than the size of samples,” Mishra said.

In Central district, 16 teams will collect samples from different areas across various age groups to ensure that the samples represent the entire administrative unit, said district magistrate Nidhi Srivastava.

Arun Gupta, additional district magistrate of South, said no sample would be collected from the areas covered in the last survey.

Since the sero survey reveals the prevalence of antibodies in population at a micro level, it helps the district authorities plan interventions for mitigation and containment of Covid-19.

The samples will be collected from various areas, including those without any any Covid-19 case, containment and buffer zones, those with only isolated cases, upscale and middle colonies, and slums. All individuals covered in the first survey will be excluded from sampling this time.

Directions have been issued to the field teams to ensure that out of the total number of samples, 25% should be of those younger than 18 years, another 25% of those in the age group of 50 years and above, and the remaining 50% from those in the age group of 18-49 years. All districts have been allocated different laboratories to send their samples for tests.

Source: https://bit.ly/2PoHLnX