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1. Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic: Leveraging Biotechnology to Tackle Infectious Diseases in India

Author:
Shruti Sharma
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
In India, the coronavirus pandemic encouraged partnerships between academia and industry, fostered collaboration among competitor companies, and stimulated cooperation within different government departments to leverage biotechnology to develop new test kits, protective equipment, vaccines, and respiratory devices. Despite this collaborative ecosystem, a few stakeholders faced several challenges during different stages of product development including discovery, research and development (R&D), clinical trial, or commercialization of their products. Some of these challenges can be attributed to a lack of an ecosystem that encourages collaborative research in India, limited involvement of private funding entities, a gap between academia and industry where university researchers lack sufficient awareness of the imperatives of industry, and a lack of awareness regarding contemporary applications of biotechnology among the regulatory community. The goal of this paper is to provide all stakeholders and the Indian public an overview of the role that advancements in biotechnology can play in strengthening India’s public health capacity. While the pandemic offered significant opportunities to the scientific community and private players in India to develop medical countermeasures, this paper only illustrates examples that discuss strategies that were adopted to accelerate the development of diagnostics and vaccines in the country. It further elucidates the challenges, both regulatory and funding, that some stakeholders faced in introducing new diagnostics and vaccines into the market during the pandemic. The paper argues that it is important for India to adopt a systematic approach to sustain the collaborative ecosystem that was cultivated during the pandemic. It further provides a brief assessment of the policies that regulate vaccines and diagnostic kits in India and the scope of enhanced and better implementation in the future. The paper also suggests strategies to maintain a continuous flow of investment to sustain research, streamline the regulatory infrastructure to minimize ambiguities regarding product approvals, and foster multistakeholder collaboration to create a sustainable research and innovation ecosystem that can be leveraged during health emergencies in the future.
Topic:
Infectious Diseases, Public Health, COVID-19, and Biotechnology
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

2. Epidemiological Insurgency: Polio Persistence on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

Author:
Rand Quinn
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Despite a profound global impact over the first half of the twentieth century, polio is largely an afterthought throughout the developed world. Vaccines engineered in the late 1950s paved the way for a precipitous drop in global disease burden with the onset of the World Health Organization-led (WHO) Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) starting in 1988. Recent indicators of the program’s success include a declaration of eradication in India[1] and a teeteringly low infection rate in Nigeria;[2] two of the disease’s last bastions. This progress, however, has been notably stifled by the steady persistence of a wild poliovirus reservoir centered in northern Pakistan along the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) border. Throughout significant portions of recorded history this region’s volatility has been well-documented, including a currently sustained network for the training of terrorist fighters dating back to the period of the 1979 Afghan-Soviet War.[3] These networks serve to both attract fledgling radical jihadist recruits and supply fighters globally, markedly providing many of the transnational fighters taking part in the Syrian Civil War. Their movement in and out of the Af-Pak region has provided a major disease vector for poliovirus. The location of a terrorist network transit hub in by far the world’s largest remaining reservoir of wild poliovirus poses a major challenge for policymakers. Due to several factors, including a decline in healthcare infrastructure throughout the western world, the situation presents a legitimate epidemiological threat. However, the issue is more importantly an exemplar of the morphing nature of multidimensional threats, which are likely to become more prevalent in an era of globalization, failed states, and an inability to effectively address social issues amidst the threat of kinetic warfare...
Topic:
Security, Environment, Health, Terrorism, World Health Organization, Infectious Diseases, and Borders
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia, Middle East, and United States of America

3. India-Brazil: Combating the double disease burden

Author:
Mohit Nair and Abhijeet Deshmukh
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations
Abstract:
Today, both India and Brazil face the risk of an increase in communicable and non-communicable diseases, given the inefficient healthcare delivery systems. How can these nations help each other implement policy changes – to weed out hiccups to healthcare systems – and serve as a model for developing nations? When the term BRIC was first coined in 2001, Brazil and India were reputed as two leading emerging markets with tremendous growth potential. While both nations have sustained high growth rates for almost a decade, both are increasingly facing the onerous double disease burden that could prove to be economically and socially crippling if left unchecked. The double disease burden refers to the rise of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Inefficient healthcare delivery systems and high rates of urbanization have contributed to periodic rises in communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV. At the same time, as life expectancy increases in both nations, there has been a concomitant hike in the prevalence of NCDs such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This double disease burden is a common characteristic of developing nations and the increasing morbidity and loss of economic activity has the risk of hampering economic growth. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the estimated loss in income from heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone was $8.7 billion in India and $2.7 billion in Brazil in 2005. This is expected to increase to $54 billion in India and $9.3 billion in Brazil by 2015. By implementing proper policy measures, both Brazil and India can avoid a health care catastrophe and serve as a model for developing nations.
Topic:
Development, Health, World Health Organization, Infectious Diseases, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, Brazil, and South America

4. India-Brazil: Combating the double disease burden

Author:
Mohit Nair and Abhijeet Deshmukh
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations
Abstract:
When the term BRIC was first coined in 2001, Brazil and India were reputed as two leading emerging markets with tremendous growth potential. While both nations have sustained high growth rates for almost a decade, both are increasingly facing the onerous double disease burden that could prove to be economically and socially crippling if left unchecked. The double disease burden refers to the rise of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Inefficient healthcare delivery systems and high rates of urbanization have contributed to periodic rises in communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV. At the same time, as life expectancy increases in both nations, there has been a concomitant hike in the prevalence of NCDs such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This double disease burden is a common characteristic of developing nations and the increasing morbidity and loss of economic activity has the risk of hampering economic growth. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the estimated loss in income from heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone was $8.7 billion in India and $2.7 billion in Brazil in 2005. This is expected to increase to $54 billion in India and $9.3 billion in Brazil by 2015. By implementing proper policy measures, both Brazil and India can avoid a health care catastrophe and serve as a model for developing nations. There is no doubt that Brazil has outperformed India in terms of controlling the spread of communicable diseases. Yet, challenges remain. While rates of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are comparatively lower in Brazil than in India, rates of dengue fever in Brazil are six times higher than they were in the 1990s, with 3.5 million cases in the last decade and no available vaccine (Barreto et. al, 2011). Control of neglected tropical diseases such as visceral leishmaniasis is also currently very poor. India has an even more unsettling disease profile with major diseases like tuberculosis responsible for more than 300,000 deaths per year. In addition, while the government boasts a reduction in prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS, it is still home to over 2.4 million HIV/AIDS patients. Equally worrying is the monumental rise in rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. According to the WHO, non-communicable diseases currently cause 35 million deaths per year and 80 percent of these occur in low- or middle-income countries (World Diabetes Foundation 2010). India will incur an accumulated loss of over $200 billion due to non-communicable diseases by 2015, and Brazil will see an estimated loss of $49.2 billion due to diabetes and cardiovascular disease alone (World Diabetes Foundation 2010). It is clear that Brazil and India will not be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 unless the double disease burden and associated challenges of alleviating the rising economic and human costs are addressed. Overall, Brazil’s efforts and programs have been more effective than India’s. Brazil’s acceptance of health care as a constitutional right for all citizens in 1988, regardless of their ability to pay, has led to groundbreaking health care reforms by the Brazilian government. Its HIV/AIDS program has served as an exemplar of government intervention. In the 1990s, the World Bank had estimated that 1.2 million people would be living with AIDS in Brazil by 2000, but in reality, the actual figure was less than 600,000 due to effective government intervention (Avert n.d.). India however, still struggles with a lack of effective communication between federal, state and municipal governments and woeful implementation of health coverage across sectors. Since India has a disproportionate share (21 percent) of the global disease burden, it is essential that it learn from Brazil a country that has achieved several significant milestones in addressing the health care needs of its citizens who are below the poverty line. India could adopt similar health care strategies to promote collaboration between the two nations to combat the double disease burden.
Topic:
Development, International Cooperation, Infectious Diseases, Health Care Policy, and Public Health
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, Brazil, and South America