The Hindu : Front Page : Hear, hear: A brand new gift from the President

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 25, 2005

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Hear, hear: A brand new gift from the President

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI: Here is some good news for those with hearing problems. With help from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and top medical professionals, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will soon be "gifting" to the country its first indigenous cochlear implant.

The instrument — an electronic device to restore hearing through a surgical implant into the skull of the patient who is congenitally deaf and as a result dumb or has turned deaf later on in life — can be used by both children and adults.

However, the reason why its entry into the market is so keenly awaited is because its cost is going to be only one-fifth of the cheapest cochlear implant now available in the country. At present a cochlear implant costs anything from Rs. 5 lakhs to9.5 lakhs apart from the cost of surgery and hospital stay.

This latest "gift from the President" is ready to go in for animal testing soon. This will be followed by human trials after which the product will hit the market.

The implant is expected to help a million people affected by the problem besides, of course, the pride of carrying the tag "Made in India". The design and working mechanism of this low-cost implant are still a "well kept secret" with talks under way with manufactures, suppliers and dealers to create a proper market for the product.

"The DRDO Hyderabad team and other experts have been working earnestly towards making the instrument and we will be testing it on guinea pigs soon at Delhi's Defence Institute of Psychological and Allied Sciences at Timarpur. The instrument was to be tested on cats, who have an ear that resembles that of humans, but following strong protests from animal rights activists a new animal had to be selected for testing. After selecting the guinea pig we had to modify the instrument, making it smaller to fit into the animal," says Dr. J. M. Hans, senior ENT specialist at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital here.

The hospital was also among the first in the country where the minimally invasive technique for cochlear implantation was started. "The indigenous new implant, which can be put in through the minimal invasive path, will however not be smaller or lighter than the present instrument, but with the reduced cost it would be accessible to more people. The President is virtually gifting to his people the joy of sound and we are thrilled to be part of the project that will help a million people in India alone," says Dr. Hans.

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