Less than two in 10 women in India received medical attention by a qualified professional in 2010 while delivering at home. Contrary to popular belief, fewer women in urban India received medical attention while delivering at home than rural India - 10.8% against 16.2%. Nearly 1 in 4 births overall were attended by "untrained functionaries" - varying from as high as 53.5% in Jharkhand to as low as 0.2% in...

The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council has suggested a complex combination of three pricing models to fix retail prices of 348 essential drugs to balance industry's concerns and public health. The proposal, however, has drawn the ire of drug makers who say it is a watered down version of the health ministry's proposals. The council has proposed that for medicines facing "insufficient competition" or a monopoly-like situation, the retail price should...

-The Hindu   The Centre's move to introduce an experimental universal health package in at least one district per State under the National Rural Health Mission, with access to free generic drugs, is a welcome measure. But the larger mission to provide free essential medicines to all citizens need not await the results of such pilot studies. It should be rolled out for poor and non-poor alike quickly. There is no time...

 Madhya Pradesh cancelled licences of seven 'gutkha' companies and banned its manufacture and sale in the state from April 1. MP is the first state in the country to ban tobacco, magnesium carbonate and nicotine-based 'gutkha' following provisions of the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restriction on Sales) Regulation 2011.  Health minister and government spokesman Narottam Mishra said gutkha manufacturing licences in the state will not be renewed. "Gutkha makers...

The medicine price regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), has found a price fixing mechanism suggested by its parent ministry, chemicals and fertilisers, has failed to meaningfully lower the prices of key cancer medicines. A group of ministers (GoM) headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is expected to meet soon to finalise a pricing policy on drugs. The NPPA study findings may compel the ministry to seek other effective ways of...