What is the issue?
- There has been an outbreak of Dengue in Kerala and Tamilnadu this year.
- Indian drug approval processes are ill equipped to deal with new Dengue medicines.
What is dengue?
- Dengue afflicts close to 400 million people a year.
- It is spread through the bite of an infected female Aedes Aegyptus mosquito.
- Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) can lead to lethal complications.
- DHF in its severe form causes Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS.
- DSS is associated with very high mortality rate as the blood pressure drops down drastically and organs start to collapse
- There are no vaccines for the disease.
What are recent inventions in dengue treatment?
- Australians discovered, when the Aedes mosquito is infected with the Wolbachia bacterium it is unable to carry the dengue virus.
- If Wolbachia could be made to infect the mosquito population that might offer a cure for dengue.
- Age old technique of faecal micro biota transplant is founded to treat dengue.
- Synthetic biology, modifying bacteria to perform specific functions is new support in dengue cure.
- Recently researches in Mumbai, used biomarkers for treatment of dengue.
- Lot of new custom made treatment are emerging in dengue treatment.
What are the issues with Indian medicine approval system?
- India is ill-equipped to regulate new medicines according to the needs.
- Indian drug approval processes are designed to assess medicines that are intended to be used by vast swathes of the population.
- Research and development are mooted in a high rate, but the success rate of the quality drugs are less.
Quick facts
Micro biome
- It is a collective environment of microorganisms
- It is found in and on all multicellular organisms studied to date from plants to animals.
- A micro biota includes bacteria, fungi and viruses.
- Micro biota have been found to be crucial for immunologic, hormonal and metabolic homeostasis of their host.
FMT
- Faecal Micro biota Transplant (FMT) is a procedure in which faecal matter, or stool, is collected from a tested donor.
- It is mixed with a saline or other solution, strained, and placed in a patient, by endoscopy, or enema etc.
- The purpose of faecal transplant is to replace good bacteria that has been killed or suppressed, usually by the use of antibiotics, causing bad bacteria, specifically Clostridium difficile.
Biomarkers
- Biomarkers are indicators that help in determining the presence or severity of a disease.
- It is used to have a knowledge of the disease progression in different individuals suffering from the disease.
Source: Live mint
