"One in three" lack drug access in India

One in three people in India lack access to medicines for economic reasons, despite the fact that the country is the fourth largest location for drug manufacturing in the world, according to the National Campaign Committee on Drug Policy. Amit Sen Gupta, the group's secretary, told a conference in New Delhi that the only way to tackle the problem would be for the government to centralize the management of public sector drugmakers, forcing them to concentrate on diseases which mostly affect the poor.

Together with the Federation of Medical Representatives Associations of India, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan and the all-India Drugs Action Network (AIDAN), the NCCDP called on the Indian government to include a manufacturing strategy as part of a new pharmaceutical policy. The non-governmental organizations also agreed that responsibility for the policy should be shared between the Ministries of Health and Chemicals, according to a report by the locally-based Pharmabiz.com.

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