Australian Broadcasting Corporation Poonam Gond is learning to describe her pain by numbers. Zero means no pain and 10 is agony. Poonam was at seven late last month. "I have never known zero pain," she said, sitting in the plastic chair where she spends most of her days. The 19-year-old has sickle cell disease, a genetic blood disorder. Her medicine ran out weeks ago. Poonam's social worker, Geeta Aayam, nods as she...

On Janaushadhi Diwas this year (i.e., March 7th, 2022), Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi stated that the poor and the middle-class benefited from the 'Jan Aushadhi Kendras' that were set up to provide generic drugs at affordable prices. He said that the poor and the middle class saved around Rs.13,000 crore through these stores during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of COVID 19 crisis, the 'Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India'...

-The Telegraph The BJP’s nationalism would have been credible if it had a humane, inclusive face The prime minister has assured his legion of admirers that India’s stature is rising in the global order. The countrymen, however, can spot only one thing that is on an unprecedented rise: the price of essential commodities. On Tuesday, the price of diesel scored a century in Bengal, much like petrol that is already burning a...

-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...

-Down to Earth Tough new conditions emerge in the compromise deal to ease WTO intellectual property barriers to production of COVID-19 medical tools We are back to square one. Back to the beginning after 18 months of a wearying, tortuous series of negotiations that carried on while millions of lives hung in the balance — and still do. The waiver of intellectual property (IP) rights on medicines, vaccines and diagnostics to fight the...