19-Jun-2018: National Health Resource Repository (NHRR) launched

Shri J P Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare released the National Health Resource Repository (NHRR) - Country’s first ever national healthcare facility registry of authentic, standardized and updated geo-spatial data of all public and private healthcare establishments.

The Union Health Minister stated that the data is an important source of navigation. It helps in understanding the goals, our strengths and weaknesses and it is also an important means to strategize. Good compiled data enables the policymakers to make evidence-based policies and aids effective implementation of various schemes. He also advised that NHRR should have inbuilt process for updating the data so that the system is relevant for times to come. Shri J P Nadda congratulated and appreciated the CBHI team for their initiatives regarding use of geo-mapping.

The vision of the NHRR Project is to strengthen evidence-based decision making and develop a platform for citizen and provider-centric services by creating a robust, standardized and secured IT-enabled repository of India’s healthcare resources. NHRR will be the ultimate platform for comprehensive information of both, Private and Public healthcare establishments including Railways, ESIC, Defense and Petroleum healthcare establishments. Under the Collection of Statistics Act 2008, over 20 lakh healthcare establishments like hospitals, doctors, clinics, diagnostic labs, pharmacies and nursing homes would be enumerated under this census capturing data on over 1,400 variables.

The Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) has actively engaged with key stakeholders including leading Associations, Allied Ministries, and several private healthcare service providers. This resource repository shall enable advanced research towards ongoing & forthcoming healthcare challenges arising from other determinants of health like - disease, environment etc.

Approximately 4,000 trained professionals are dedicatedly working to approach every healthcare establishment for information collection. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is the project technology partner adhering to paramount Data Security.

The key expected outcomes of the NHRR project are to provide comprehensive data on all health resources including private doctors, health facilities, chemists, and diagnostics labs, establish a National Health Resource Repository for evidence based decision making – aligned with Digital India mission. It shall also enhance the coordination between central and state government for optimization of health resources, making ‘live’ and realistic state Project Implementation Plans (PIPs) and improving accessibility of data at all levels, including State Head of Departments, thus, decentralize the decision making at district and state level.

Some key benefits of the NHRR Project are to create a reliable, unified registry of Country’s healthcare resources showing the distribution pattern of health facilities and services between cities and rural areas. Additionally, it shall generate real-world intelligence to identify gaps in health and service ratios, and ensure judicious health resource allocation and management. It shall identify key areas of improvement by upgrading existing health facilities or establishing new health facilities keeping in view the population density, geographic nature, health condition, distance, etc.

The  mandate of the NHRR is to achieve the following objectives:

  1. Promote evidence based planning and decision making in healthcare sector through provision of comprehensive data on healthcare resources (both public and private sector) in the country.
  2. Provide visibility of private sector healthcare resources to facilitate public private partnership initiatives for improve access and availability of health services.
  3. Provide technology based solutions to improve efficiency of health systems by improving planning, provisioning of healthcare resources.
  4. Improve informed decision making and community awareness by allowing access to holistic information on healthcare resources.
  5. Promote meaningful use of data collection and exchange services for better healthcare management by providing a common platform for sharing information.
  6. Promote convergence between similar programmes by providing interoperability.
  7. Enhance effectiveness of programme planning and implementation at centre, state and district level by providing updated healthcare resource status.
  8. Provide a platform for managing emergencies effectively by providing information on all the healthcare resources (public & private) in the designated geography.
  9. Furnish standardized data, distribution of resources and trends on the global platform, using regularly updated health status indicators.

21-Jul-2017: Scientists to release 20 million mosquitoes to shrink mosquito population.

Scientists in California are releasing 20 million mosquitoes in an effort to shrink the population of mosquitoes that can carry diseases. It sounds counterintuitive. But the plan is to release millions of sterile male mosquitoes, which will then mate with wild female mosquitoes. The eggs the females lay won't hatch.

The project is called Debug Fresno and it's being undertaken by Verily, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's holding company. It's the company's first field study involving sterile mosquitoes in the U.S.

Scientists say the goal is to cut the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes — the species responsible for spreading Zika, dengue and chikungunya. A. aegypti have been present in California's Central Valley since 2013 and have been a problem in Fresno County.

Each week for 20 weeks, the company plans to release 1 million of the sterile, non-biting male mosquitoes in two neighborhoods in Fresno County. The male mosquitoes are bred and infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium that is "naturally found in at least 40 percent of all insect species,"  though it's normally not found in A. aegypti.

Wolbachia also helps mosquitoes to avoid carrying diseases like Zika in the first place. A. aegypti "carrying Wolbachia bacteria were highly resistant to Zika virus infection, and were unable to transmit the virus via their saliva,". The bacterium "is not known" to infect humans.

Verily has developed "automated mass rearing and sex-sorting processes," which enable it to breed and release so many of the mosquitoes in such a short time.

The method Verily is using to cut the mosquito population differs from the experiment the British company Oxitec proposed last year in the Florida Keys. In contrast to the mosquitoes being infected by bacteria, Oxitec has released males that are genetically modified with "a gene that causes the mosquito's offspring to die in the first two to three days of life".

30-June-2017: Industry-Academia Collaborative Mission for Accelerating Discovery Research to Early Development for Biopharmaceuticals

It is time for India to capitalize now on our unique strengths and overcome any hurdles to ensure success in the bio-pharmaceutical market.

The first ever Industry-Academia mission to accelerate biopharmaceutical development in India has been approved by the Government of India. The program named Innovate in India (i3) will witness an investment of USD 250 million with USD 125 million as a loan from World Bank and aspires to create an enabling ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and indigenous manufacturing in the sector.

This Mission of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology will be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) - a Public Sector Undertaking of DBT. The programme will specifically focus on the development of new vaccines, bio-therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices to better address the rising burden of diseases in the country. It will also bring isolated centres of excellence together, enhance regional capabilities and strengthen the current bio-clusters network in terms of capacities as well as quantity and quality of output. The programme will help deliver 6-10 new products in the next five years, create several dedicated facilities for next-generation skills, and hundreds of jobs in the process. It will provide young entrepreneurs the confidence as well as the systemic support to pursue their aspirations in biotechnological innovation, and transform India into a global hub for cutting-edge biotechnology research and development.

As a flagship program of the Government of India in collaboration with World Bank, it promises to boost the growth curve for domestic biopharma in India by accelerating the translation of research concepts into viable products, supporting clinical validation, enabling sustainable networks for collaboration between industry and academia, and supporting entrepreneurial ecosystem amongst many others. Currently India has only 2.8% share in the global biopharmaceutical market, the program would elevate this to 5% resulting in an additional business opportunity of 16 Billion USD.

The oversight to the program would be provided by the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee comprising of members from various Ministries; and would be supported by Program Technical Advisory Group comprising of global and national leaders from industry and academia. The program thereby stands unique in its approach with involvement of global experts, industry leaders and World Bank in driving it and ensuring world class biomedical products are born out of the initiative. This Mission is anticipated to be a game changer for the Indian Biopharmaceutical industry.

  1. GM Mosquito