In the run up to the lok Sabha elections slated for the next year, the Union Health Ministry is chalking out a plan to kick off a series of diagnostic strips at an affordable cost for public usage.
Officials in the Ministry said that Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has issued instructions to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Department of the Health Research to launch the strips, at least one in every month till the announcement of the general elections in 2014.
The indigenously manufactured strips are expected to slash the diagnosis costs drastically. Confirming the move, ICMR director general V M Katoch said that 30 projects are underway by different institutes under the ICMRa and almost a dozen projects are in the advanced stage. “We hope to launch a few of them by December,” Katoch said.
The strip for testing sugar level in diabetic patients is likely to be the first kit to be launched by the Ministry. It will cost as low as Rs 5 when compared to Rs 30-35 in the private sector. Irrespective of the income earning capacity, diabetes is becoming an acute public health problem in the country due to the changing lifestyle. India has estimated 62 million diabetic patients, second only to China which has 92.3 million diabetic.
According to various estimates, by 2030, India’s diabetic patients’ numbers are expected to cross the 100 million mark. In this backdrop, the launch of the low cost diabetes test strips is expected to be a boon for the poor who cannot afford high cost-kits. The technologies under development include diagnostic kit for Serum Ferritin for testing iron in blood, diagnostic kit for detection of anti-hepatitis A, testing strips for methods of mosquito control and test kits for diseases like TB, dengue and several other infections and cancer.
Katoch said that efforts are also on to tie up with the companies to take up the mass scale production of these strips.