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INDIA TO SOON LAUNCH ITS INDIGENOUSLY DEVELOPED VACCINE AGAINST LEPROSY
Leprosy is caused by the bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae and it affects around 1.25 lakh people every year in India. It means that roughly about sixty per cent of the world’ s leprosy patients live here in this country. A lot many of them remain away from the proper prevention due to expensive options and lack of far reaching exclusive programmes by the government.
Therefore, the need for an affordable ' Made in India ' vaccine for clearly being felt by the patients and health workers alike. And finally now the wait seems to be over. The India ' s first indigenous vaccine exclusively for leprosy, mycobacterium indicus Pranii( MIP), will be administered as a preventive measure for people living in close contact with those infected by the bacteria. This is said to be the first such mass vaccination programme in the world. It has been developed due to the efforts of the founder-director of the National Institute of Immunology( NII), Dr G P Talwar.
The announcement in this regard was made by the Union Health Minister, Mr Jagat Prakash Nadda while speaking recently in Chennai at National Awareness Convention on Leprosy organised by the Sri Ramakrishna Math, Central Leather Research Institute and Saksham. " The first exclusive vaccine for leprosy that was developed in India will be launched in a few weeks," said Mr Nadda. The Minister added that five districts in Bihar and Gujarat will be chosen for the pilot phase.
Vaccine has been cleared by the Drug Controller General of India( DCGI) and the US-FDA. The government sources say that if the pilot phase shows satisfactory results, the programme will be implemented in other high-prevalence districts across the country.
In Phase-I, over 7.5 crore people were screened in 50 high prevalence districts. As many as 65,000 suspected cases were detected, in which 5,000 were confirmed for leprosy. They are now being treated," he added. Phase-II of the programme is expected to be launched in September, during which 163 districts 20 states including Erode district in Tamil Nadu, one of the hot spot for leprosy in the country, will be covered. The persons diagnosed also will be given a dose of antibiotic Rifampicin.
DST COMMITS 500 CRORE FOR PM’ S VISION ON STARTUP INDIA
NIDHI( National Initiative for Development and Harnessing Innovations), an umbrella program is pioneered by the Department of Science & Technology( DST), Government of India, for nurturing ideas and innovations( knowledge-based and technology-driven) into successful startups.
In order to realize the Prime Minister’ s ambitious Initiative on Startup India, DST aims to bring both speed and scale to transform the startup ecosystem in the country and has committed 500 crores to implement these new programs in next few years.
NIDHI focuses on building a seamless and innovation driven entrepreneurial ecosystem especially by channelizing youth towards it and thereby bringing in the positive impact on the socio-economic development of the country. The program aims to provide technological solutions not only to the pressing needs of the society but also targets to create new avenues for wealth and job creation.
There are 8 components of NIDHI that support each stage of a buddin g startup from idea to market. The first component PRAYAS( Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring Innovators & Startups), launched on 2nd September, 2016, aims to support innovators to build prototypes of their ideas by providing a grant up to Rs 10 lakhs and an access to Fabrication Laboratory( Fab Lab). The final component is the Seed Support System which provides upto One Crore rupees per start-up and is implemented through Technology Business Incubators. During the current financial year with a view to drive the innovation and startup centric new initiatives in a scaled up manner for its wider outreach across the country, a 450 percent increase in allocation( Rs 180 crores) has been made in the Department’ s budget.
GLOBAL COALITION CEPI FORMED TO TACKLE INFECTIOUS DISEASES
India’ s vaccine industry and government is preparing to play a key role in the newly formed global coalition, CEPI( Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation), to be chaired in the interim by DBT secretary, Dr K VijayRaghavan.
The decision to play an active role and offering India’ s immense expertise in vaccine production and other capabilities in this new coalition, CEPI( Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), was taken at a meeting attended by representatives of Association of Biotechnology-Led Enterprises( ABLE), Confederation of Indian Industry( CII) and other vaccine experts in New Delhi on September 5, 2016 under the leadership of Dr K VijayRaghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology.
The interaction between DBT and the Indian vaccine leaders was coordinated by ABLE and CII. Experts brain-stormed on India’ s potential role in a global initiative CEPI that is being formed. Dr K VijayRaghavan is the interim chair of the committee.
As per the press note issued by ABLE, various suggestions were exchanged and would be firmed up in the coming months. The mood and the message was quite clear – that India had the wherewithal in terms of scientific talent and capacity to respond to any exigency, as was witnessed in case of H1N1 outbreak.
Going forward, the Government of India through DBT and the Indian Vaccine industry would work together to secure India citizens and others from potential epidemics. SARS, Ebola, Zika are diseases that have been in the news not only for the fatalities they cause but also for the fact that the outbreaks have been sudden and vicious. Moreover, there were no known Preventive or remedies at hand when they struck.
INDIAN SCIENTIST COUPLE AT DEAKIN UNIVERSITY BRING RAY OF HOPE TO PROSTATE CANCER PATIENTS
In a major scientific research breakthrough, the Indian husband-wife, both scientists, have found out that a protein in cow and human milk, coupled with Doxorubicin can successfully treat prostate cancer, negates toxic side effects in prostate cancer research.
A medical scientists’ team, at Deakin University, Australia, has recently announced that they achieved a breakthrough in
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BioVoiceNews | September 2016