Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 24/02/2025. The Supreme Court (SC), February 24, 2025 has directed all states to file their affidavits addressing concerns raised about antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs …
Economic liberalisation is forcing East Asians to drugs, says the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNCDP). In Vienna on March 15, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, UNCDP's executive, revealed that countries like Thailand, China and Hong Kong were emerging as narcotics markets. This region -- which produces 80 per cent …
SCIENTISTS from the Delhi-based National Institute of Immunology (NII) have developed a drug called MUJ-7, which they claim could be a potential weapon against cancer of the colon and rectum. The new drug's modus operandi is to starve the cancer cells of the growth factors that sustain them, explains Rama …
WHILE the Indian government appears to be a lame duck in the face of the recent spurt in malaria in the country, a joint research team of the University of Western Australia and Murdhoch University has developed a new drug capable of killing one of the most virulent forms of …
Peter Smetacek 5,25 a, Jangpura-b New Delhi 110 014 The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology Post Box 30772 Nairobi, Kenya International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics Patancheru 502 324 Andhra Pradesh Andrew Thompson Murdoch University Murdoch, wa 6150 Australia
Along with problems associated with unhealthy living conditions and drug resistance, tuberculosis poses an additional danger as it has targeted HIV carriers. As such, TB is a leading cause of death due to a single infectious agent. In the developing world, the annual incidence of all forms of TB is …
Historical ills Malaria It has been hypothesised that the malarial parasite evolved either with humans or even earlier. Hippocrates wrote about it in the 5th century BC. In India, Ayurvedic gurus' Charaka and Susruta related malaria to mosquito bites. For 2,000 years, the Chinese have been using extracts from the …
Right from the "60s, DDT resistance of the malaria parasite host, Anopheles culicifacies, was detected in Gujarat. It was a rising trend. Another important vector, A stephensi, became so rugged that it can now grow in stagnant water found in coolers, used tyres -- just about anywhere. DDT remains the …
Malaria -- whose incidence dropped from an estimated annual 75 million cases with 0.8 million deaths before Independence to 0.1 million cases with no deaths by 1964 -- showed feverish activity in the '70s. It is stabilising now at about 2 million cases a year. Of late, however, a potentially …
PROTEIN engineers at the Institute of Food Research, Reading, in the UK have found the means to produce rugged and more efficient versions of a key enzyme -- phospholipase A2 or PLA2 -- used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. PLA2 activates the breakdown of phospholipids, which are fat molecules …
Pakistani medicos are unhappy about the use of the drug Parlodel, banned in the US and Canada. The doctors say that the drug's common side effects -- low blood pressure, excessive vomiting, severe headache and nausea -- warrant its withdrawal from the market. Palodel, which reduces post-natal lactation, has a …
A US $131 million-suit has been slapped on pharmaceutical giant Glaxo by 400 former patients. They claim that between 1944 and 1987, Myodil, a medical dye used in spinal x-rays, caused severe side effects like damaged nerve roots, acute pain and even partial paralysis. They also allege that Glaxo did …
STRONG medicines have severe side-effects because the influence of toxic drugs often goes beyond the infection to include the body's healthy tissue. Now, biological chemists hope that better targeting of the drugs can be done through liposomes -- little artificial fat globules that can enclose drugs or other chemicals inside …
THE burst of infectious diseases like malaria, kala-azar, cholera and tuberculosis in India is indicative of a deeper malaise. Despite a stated emphasis on participatory health management, in actual practice the dependence on expensive curative and therapeutic drugs is matched only by inadequate emphasis on preventive measures. With the growing …
For US armed forces it is now adieu metals, and welcome plastics. Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have designed plastic-composite nosecones for shoulder-fired missiles for the marines. Plastic composites are inexpensive and lighter than metal parts. Difficult to produce, they were ignored by manufacturers. But the researchers have developed …
The Union government plans to introduce a bill in the Parliament to institute a national drug authority which would monitor and control the manufacture and marketing of drugs in India. Although a formal announcement to this effect has yet to come from the government, the proposed formation of the body …
To meet its objective of health for all by AD 2000, Bangladesh has decided to open its doors for importing pharmaceutical ingredients, packaging products and finished drugs. Medicines inadequately produced in the country can now be imported without any restrictions. However, curbs will remain on drugs manufactured on a large …
A simple, selective and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method has been developed for the measurement of josamycin residues in four porcine tissues (i.e., muscle, liver, kidney and fat). The sample preparation consisted of a homogenization step in an acetonitrile
IN A significant shift in research emphasis, Indian scientists in the drugs and pharmaceuticals sector are focusing on product development rather than the usual process development. The government has launched a "Drug Mission" designed to involve industry in drug development from the very beginning. "We are equipping ourselves for the …
DESPITE efforts to prevent the spread of malaria, the disease strikes as many as 300 to 500 million people each year and claims over a million lives. Not only have the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite -- Plasmodium -- become increasingly tolerant of pesticides, the parasite"s defence mechanism also …
The Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) is caught in middle of a raging debate over the use of monkeys in the manufacture of oral polio vaccine (OPV). While the Maharashtra government has sought permission from MEF to use bonnet and rhesus monkeys for producing OPV, experts have pointed …
