Brussels, 9 April, 2013 - As European Commission (EC) pressure mounts on India to rush into signing a free trade agreement (FTA) by mid-April, activists from across Europe mobilised in Brussels today to demand the EC withdraw provisions that will harm people’s access to medicines in India and across the developing world. Civil society organisations have learnt through leaked texts that the EC, in closed-door negotiations, is aggressively pushing for stronger industry control at the expense of public health, threatening millions of lives.

People with diabetes are 2,5 times more likely to develop tuberculosis (TB), according to an international study. The International Diabetes Federation revealed there was a study that showed that people with diabetes are at higher risk of developing TB than those without diabetes. According to the Zimbabwe Diabetes Associations, close to 40 percent of the Zimbabwean population is diabetic.

When Jane Mwende noticed a swollen gland under the armpit of her 10-month-old baby, she never took it seriously. She thought it was a boil which would eventually clear. “I took him for a check up and the doctor at a private hospital in Nairobi gave us some ointment to apply and said the infection should clear in a few days,” Mwende said. This was however not to be. For about five months, Mwende moved from different hospitals trying to seek help for her son who was now beginning to lose weight. “I went to about six doctors and none of them seemed to get to the bottom of the problem.”  She visited a facility where she requested the doctor to conduct different check-ups on her son. The medic carried out multiple tests among them HIV, cancer, liver, kidney and chronic ailment examinations. “That was a shocking moment for me.

When the chest pain and racking cough of tuberculosis patient Asha (31) refused to subside even after six months of treatment, the doctor got her sputum tested again - only to find that she had developed a worrying form of the disease known as Extensively Drug Resistant TB, which is nearly impossible to treat as of now.

Each week about eight people die of tuberculosis in Moscow alone, an expert announced Wednesday, and while the number of deaths from the infectious disease are down, the number of cases has grown.

Barring a quick policy change in the treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) and Diabetes Mellitus (DM) co-morbidity, Nigerians may be facing a fresh public health danger.

Tuberculosis patients who swallow their anti-TB pills under the watchful gaze of health care workers fare just as well as patients trusted to self-medicate, according to a new meta-analysis.

Novartis, its fellow Big Pharma multinationals, Chambers of Commerce, and PhRMA have all roundly denounced India's Supreme Court's decision invalidating Novartis' patent application for Glivec (Gleevec in the United States) and its affirmation of strict anti-evergreening standards of patentability and inventive step in India.  As usual, Big Pharma cannot tell the truth about what India has done, what international intellectual property rules require, and what the impact of this decision will be on product introductions in India and innovation of new medicines.  Because journalists continue to carry Pharma canards and since observers are anxious to understand whether India's decision is legal or purely instrumental to advance industrial policy in favor of Indian generics, I debunk the major myths with what I hope are convincing facts.

Abstract

Despite recent advances in TB diagnostics, current technologies suffer serious disadvantages.