A report by an expert group on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has suggested wide-ranging institutional reforms to regulate the public and the private sectors to ensure assured quality and rational pricing of healthcare services. The group, set up by the Planning Commission to develop a blue print and investment plan to meet the human resource requirements to achieve health for all by 2020, focuses on rational use of drugs. The extensive...

-The Business Standard   After generating much controversy back home on the Planning Commission's “unrealistic definition” of poverty line, India had to field some tough queries in Washington over the matter. Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu said the government was looking at various parameters of poverty estimates to provide better coverage to the vulnerable section through a proposed food law. "...now we are going to go into a new food security programme, where we...

Mulling It Over     100% FDI allowed in pharma sector through automatic route     Seven top Indian firms have been acquired by MNCs in the past six years     Fear of price rise in generic medicines if MNCs control market     Health, commerce ministries want FDI to go through approvals     PMO meeting key ministries next month to take a decision *** Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has always been firm in reminding domestic industry that their fear...

A report from a sample survey of the functioning of the public distribution system in 12 villages in two districts in Orissa, a state usually associated with a poor PDS. While there are errors in exclusion and inclusion of households covered, there has been a vast improvement in operation of the PDS; below the poverty line households seem to be receiving their entitlements. The households also express a strong preference...

-The United Nations   The United Nations today welcomed the results of studies that show that taking a tablet of an antiretroviral drug daily can reduce the risk of acquiring HIV by up to 73 per cent in people not infected by the virus that causes AIDS. The findings of the studies carried out in Kenya, Uganda and Botswana, showed that daily use of both tenofovir and tenofovir/emtricitabine antiretrovirals, taken as preventive...