-The Hindu More than a year after 13 women died in a mass sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh, it is far from clear whether lessons have been learnt or justice done Sixteen months after a mass sterilisation camp conducted by the government of Chhattisgarh resulted in 13 deaths and 65 injuries, viscera reports — from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Ramanthapur, Hyderabad, and from the Central Drugs Laboratory, Kolkata, to go with...

-The Indian Express Bedaquiline, which is a drug for Multi-Drug Resistant TB, is being introduced at six identified tertiary care centres across India. The Union Health Ministry has introduced Bedaquiline into the national tuberculosis (TB) programme. This was among several initiatives Health Minister J P Nadda launched on Monday. Bedaquiline, which is a drug for Multi-Drug Resistant TB, is being introduced at six identified tertiary care centres across India. The sites have...

-The Indian Express Government privileges the private over the public, preferring trade to health In a dramatic development, US industry groups recently claimed the Indian government offered them a “private” assurance that compulsory licences will not be issued, save in emergencies and for non-commercial purposes. Needless to state, such an assurance flies in the face of the Patents Act and the public health safeguards enshrined in it. Illustratively, Section 84 mandates that...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: International humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres has filed an application to block US pharmaceutical company Pfizer from obtaining a patent in India for a vaccine against pneumonia and allow Indian vaccine manufacturers to make low-cost versions. The patent opposition moved by MSF has claimed that Pfizer's patent application, which describes methods of conjugating 13 serotypes (strains) of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae into a single carrier vaccine, does not...

-TheWire.in The government appears bent on decisively abandoning the earlier consensus of adherence to public health goals. In what is widely being hailed as an extraordinary victory for the multinational pharmaceutical industry over the Indian government, the US-India Business Council (USIBC), in its submission to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), reports that the Indian government has “privately assured” the industry that it would not use compulsory licences (CLs) for commercial purposes....