The change is accompanied by a significant geographical shift from the south and north-east to states in other parts of India such as Maharashtra, Bihar, Orissa and Rajasthan Marking a dramatic shift in the demographic profile of people with AIDS, migrant workers and their wives have emerged as a high-risk group (HRG) for contracting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with an infection rate surpassing that of injecting drug users, commercial sex...

India's HIV control programme could soon get merged with the country's flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), if the Planning Commission has its way. The Commission's steering committee on health for the 12th five-year Plan has proposed "incorporating AIDS control, universal healthcare and universal access to essential medicines" into NRHM. Planning Commission member in-charge of health Syeda Hameed said, "It is a serious recommendation to incorporate NACO under an overall National Health...

-Economic and Political Weekly The compulsory licence for Nexavar is only the beginning of a new battle over drug prices. The grant of a compulsory licence (CL) to Natco Pharma, a relatively small Indian pharmaceutical company, to manufacture and sell the cancer drug sorafenib (Nexavar) has been rightly hailed as a major step forward for public health and the wider availability of life saving medicines.   The German pharmaceutical company Bayer holds the patent...

India's decision this month to produce Germany-based multinational Bayer's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, in the first use of "compulsory licensing" in South Asia, will save lives but also raises intricate questions. Under the compulsory licensing process, a government can under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules bypass a patent owner's rights after three years and order the manufacture and sale of life-saving medicines at much cheaper cost than by obtaining the medicine from...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...