The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : Convention for re-look on policy for life-saving drugs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 22, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

Convention for re-look on policy for life-saving drugs

Staff Reporter

Wants all essential drugs under Drug Price Control Order

VISAKHAPATNAM: The recent national convention on "Drug policy and life-saving drugs'' demanded a re-look at the policy to include new drugs. The Janaswastya Abhiyan, Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives Association of India (FMRAI), All-India Drug Action Committee and National Campaign Committee on Drug Policy (NCCDP) jointly organised the convention at Kolkata in which 120 delegates from all over the country participated. The meeting resolved that new drugs, mainly those needed for cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, HIV/AIDS should be included in the drug policy. It also wanted bringing all essential and life-saving drugs under the purview of Drug Price Control Order, abolition of taxes on medicines for cancer and HIV/AIDS and setting a drug regulatory authority.

To improve healthcare, more allocations should be made in the Union budget and spending increased on research and development, the convention suggested. Expressing concern over the healthcare policies followed by the previous NDA and the current UPA regimes, the convention felt that the goal of "Health for all'' had merely remained a slogan. Life expectancy was 83 years in Japan and more than 75 in America, Germany, Switzerland and England, while it lagged behind between 60 and 63 years in India, it pointed out stressing the need for increasing the quality of life.

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