The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a public interest writ petition against licensing of and trials with the unproven human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, ostensibly to treat cervical cancer.

The petition, by Kalpana Mehta and other health activists, cited the Drugs Controller-General of India (DCGI), the Indian Council of Medical Research and others as respondents. It said Gardasil and Cervarix were hazardous HPV vaccines marketed in India by MSD Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd. (a subsidiary of Merck) and GlaxoSmithKline Ltd.

Expressing dismay over the government’s inaction, the Supreme Court today restored the ban imposed on the advertisements on cigarettes and other tobacco products under a law enacted by Parliament in 2003.

A Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and Gyan Sudha Misra said the stay granted by the Bombay High Court in December 2005 on the ban had “totally frustrated” the law put in place in public interest.

Active against drug-resistant forms, the FDA-approved drug is a game changer

While there is a lot of hope and enthusiasm over the new tuberculosis drug, first in close to 50 years, health activists say the challenge for countries like India and treatment providers is devising new treatment regimens for drug-resistant TB that are shorter, and more tolerable for patients and effective. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved the new TB drug bedaquiline, the first since 1963. The fact that the drug is active against drug-resistant forms of the disease makes it a potential game changer.

Hill States Have Highest Rates Of Diabetes, Hypertension

Hyderabad: Contaminated water has claimed 108 lives in the state this year, according to figures stated in the Parliament by Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. The city is not immune to the trend, and cases of diarrhoea and gastroenteritis seem to be high. City hospitals have registered about 1,200 cases of acute diarrhoeal diseases this year.

Dr Kiran Peddi, gastroenterologist at Global Hospitals, said that he has been attending to seven to 10 cases every week. “It is mostly diarrhoea or vomiting, or sometimes a combination of both, resulting in gastroenteritis. There are jaundice and typhoid cases as well,” Dr Peddi said.

Committee makes note of the “preparedness” shown by it

The manner in which the State Government responded to the outbreak of dengue fever during the recent epidemic is a model that can be emulated elsewhere in the country, B.K. Tyagi, Director, Centre for Research in Medical Entomology (CRME), here has said. A national-level committee formed recently by the Union Health Ministry to investigate into various public health issues had taken note of the “preparedness” shown by the State Government, its Health Department and public participation in tackling dengue outbreak, he said.

Months after the Union Health Ministry turned down demands of a section of the medical community to devise ways to fight Totally Drug Resistant (TDR) Tuberculosis, an article in the latest issue of

A study published in the Malaria World Journal has found that worldwide 2.6 per cent of all WHO-approved artemisinin-based anti-malaria drugs are substandard, as they have less than the prescribed

In a bid to ensure that the drugs available in the country are safe for consumption, the Drug Controller-General of India (DCGI) has asked the state drug inspectors to get the samples of the drugs collected and get them tested for their quality at the drug testing laboratories.

The issue was taken up during a discussion on spurious, substandard, expired drugs in the Union health ministry early this month after which it was decided to get the drug samples collected and be tested for their safety. A letter to this effect has been sent out to the state drug inspectors. DCGI has asked the inspectors to draw samples of drugs from the manufacturing sites and sent them to the Central Drug Testing Laboratories for prompt testing. DCGI has instructed to complete the “special drive” within a period of six-nine months.