-The Hindu “The current version of the text added new burdensome conditions that would impose additional limits on countries using non-voluntary licensing” Six experts from India, South Africa and the United States have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reject the current version of a proposal at the World Trade Organisation on intellectual property waivers for COVID-19 medicines, that includes vaccines, drugs and diagnostics. In October 2020, at the WTO’s Trade Related...

-The Hindu CIC rules information not exempted under Right to Information Act, Union Home Ministry says records destroyed every six months. Even as the controversy over the Government of India allegedly deploying Pegasus spyware to snoop on top politicians, journalists, activists etc refuses to die down, the Ministry of Home Affairs has sprung a surprise saying it maintains no data of lawful interceptions made by authorised intelligence/law–enforcing agencies. In a written submission before...

-The New Indian Express A significant share, almost two-thirds of OOP expenses, are for purchasing outpatient care, especially medicines. NEW DELHI: Household Out-Of-Pocket (OOP) expenses on health services, especially medicines, continue to push over 55 million people in India into poverty, with over 18 per cent of households incurring catastrophic levels of health expenditures annually, says a WHO report. Despite India’s billing as the ‘pharmacy of the world,’ its population’s access to medicines...

-The New Indian Express These scheduled medicines constitute about 18 per cent of the total domestic pharma retail market, valued around Rs 1.5 trillion. NEW DELHI: Prices of over 800 drugs under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), including paracetamol, common antibiotics like azithromycin, doxycycline and medications for hypertension, diabetes and COVID-19 will increase by 10.7 per cent starting Friday. Activists slammed the move saying that it would hit the pockets of...

-TheWire.in * The Parliamentary standing committee on chemicals and fertilisers has produced a report highlighting gaps in the availability of COVID-19 drugs and devices during the pandemic. * The committee has asked the national government why PSUs didn’t receive licenses to make COVID drugs when private manufacturers did. * The MPs on the committee also spotlighted widespread irrational drug use in COVID-19 management, despite the existence of a standard treatment protocol. New Delhi: The...