HEALTH

A scientist from USA on mission
by Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — Dr Rajan Gupta, a senior staff scientist working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA, is here on a mission.

A Ph.D in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology, Dr Gupta, a recipient of several awards and honours, has taken upon himself the task of educating youngsters and others about the "AIDS pandemic" facing India.

Every year he takes a couple of months off from his work in the USA to visit India to conduct programmes and workshops on AIDS, besides visiting schools and other places.

Dr Gupta feels that the biggest hurdle in checking the growing threat of AIDS and HIV was "corruption".

"In the absence of a foolproof system, people get infected blood. Compared to it see the USA or other Western countries where such incidents are a thing of the past," he says, maintaining that people also needed to be educated about the impact this deadly disease would have on any nation, say its economy or in other areas.

Last September, he delivered a lecture on the ''Cost of health pandemics in light of HIV/AIDS on industry and the nation" under the aegis of the Social Development and Community Affairs Subcommittee of the Confederation of Indian Industry (Northern Region) here which was attended by more than 1,000 children of class XII from 20 schools.

This is his second visit to the city to undertake programmes and workshops on the AIDS pandemic. He has already delivered lectures to students of eight schools of the city, including three government schools and a polytechnic. Besides, he conducted a five-day teachers' training workshop.

"The idea is to spread the message and educate the maximum number of people about the spread of this deadly disease either through sex or through blood transfusion. This is my humble way of doing things. I may not be perfect in my approach but I do not want to nurse a grouse tomorrow that i did not do my duty or job in time," he adds.

Dr Gupta, though a physicist, maintains that a "scientist is a scientist" and though he has no formal training in medicine, he thinks it to be his duty to create awareness by talking to children "who are our future".

Dr Gupta says that, besides creating awareness about preventive HIV/AIDS, he also counsels children and teacher trainers about handling those who have contracted the disease.

Drugs by generic names ‘much cheaper’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — Physicians should prescribe the drugs by their generic names, since these drugs are 5 to 10 times cheaper than their brand equivalents. This was advocated by Dr P.L. Sharma, Emeritus Professor, in his lecture focussing on benefit-cost considerations in new drug development and patient care on the fifth day of the ongoing national workshop on clinical pharmacology.

Dr Sharma pointed out that the general impression that generic drugs are not of the right quality or are substandard has not been proved in several well-controlled clinical trials. He also stressed the role played by the pharmaceutical industry in discovering and marketing very effective and safe drugs that have markedly decreased the load of several acute and chronic diseases in the past 60 years.

With regard to the public myth that the drug industry is making fat profits, he clarified that the public demand for very effective and safe drugs and the resultant government regulations has markedly increased the cost of discovery and marketing a novel drug. The current estimate is $ 600 millions per drug. Also, in the very competitive market, only 30 per cent new drugs make a sizeable profit for the company.

Dr Sharma said that it has been found that the choice of a drug to treat a patient should not be made on the basis of its price alone. It must be remembered that the expenditure on drugs alone does not exceed 10 to 12 per cent of the total healthcare cost of treating patients. Hospitalisation is the most expensive component of health service costs. An expensive drug, by decreasing the duration of hospital stay, and by a speedier return of the patient to productive work may be more cost-effective, as compared to a cheaper cost-effective drug.

According to Dr Sharma, developing countries, including India, with limited healthcare budgets must carry out controlled clinical trials in the day-to-day healthcare setting.

Dr M.C. Gupta from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, deliberated on a relatively new and upcoming concept in medicine — ‘Quality of Life’ — of the patients receiving a variety of treatments. He emphasised on the fact that health of a person is not only determined by the clinicians but the patient’s own perceptions about his health are also equally important. Health is not only freedom from disease but a matter of the overall well-being of the patient. Later, Dr Gupta conducted a highly academic and interesting ‘Pharma quiz’ for the delegates attending the workshop. The quiz was won by Dr Percy H.Sanjana from Mumbai.

Dr Samir Malhotra from the Department of Pharmacology, PGI, discussed the ethical and legal considerations while conducting clinical trials which involves healthy volunteers and patients. While emphasising on the welfare of the subject, he said that the Declaration of Helsinki and guidelines issued from time to time by other international bodies like the WHO and Council of International Organisations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) should be strictly followed.

Dr S.K. Garg, the organising secretary of the workshop, said that the delegates would have many new areas of interest. He was hopeful that most of them would start some new facilities in their respective institutions, especially in those areas which do not need much infrastructure like drug information to doctors, drug utilisation studies, adverse drug reaction monitoring centres.

SPORT

Dhindsa, Mohindra felicitated
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — The Chandigarh Amateur Cycling Association, in its general body meeting held here today, congratulated its President, Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, who was recently given the Sports portfolio in the Union Cabinet, in addition to Employment and Poverty Alleviation.

Mr Rakesh Mohindra read the report of the activities of the association. The house felicitated him on becoming MTB International Commissiare. Mr Inderpal Singh of the Chandigarh Sports Council and Mr Balvinder Singh of the Cycling Federation of India attended the meeting as observers.

It was decided to request Mr Dhindsa to take up the matter of cycling velodrome at Chandigarh with the SAI and the UT Administration. Members expresseed happiness over the performance of city cyclists in the recently held Nationals, where they won three gold medals. Mr Inderpal suggested joint cycle rallies on ordinary cycles to promote this sport.

Mr A.S. Chhatwal, Senior Vice-President, proposed participation of the private sector in organising such races. It was agreed to get a sponsor for the MTB national cycling championship, to be held in March. He proposed to raise cycling teams for various schools and colleges of the city, to whom technical guidance would be provided by the association.

Athletics meet: The annual athletics meet of Government Home Science College, Sector 10, was organised on the college premises.

Dr C.L. Narang, Director, NSS, Panjab University, presided over the function and gave away the prizes. He stressed the need for physical, mental and social development of one's personality. He asked students to become strong and possess a sound mind.

Dr Usha Dhawal, Principal of the college, said students should develop themselves for betterment of their character, life and social participation. Sukhjit Kaur of BSc Home Science, was adjudged best athlete.

Yoga trials: The Chandigarh Amateur Yoga Association will hold trials at Parshuram Bhawan, Sector 37-C, on February 13 to select the UT team for taking part in North Zone yoga championship to be held at Delhi. The age groups are Group A: sub-junior girls (8 to 12 years), sub-junior boys (8 to 14 years), Group B: junior girls (12 to 18 years), junior boys (14 to 20 years), and Group C: senior girls (18 to 25 years), senior boys (20to 30 years).

Boxing tourney: The UT sub-junior boxing championships, scheduled to be held on February 13 and 14, will now be held at Boxing coaching centre, Sector 23, according to a press note of the Chandigarh Ameteur Boxing Association.

City gears up for national judo meet
By Arvind Katyal

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — Rupinderdeep Kaur, a third year mechanical engineering student of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh will be the city’s main challenge in the Senior National Judo Championships going to start here on February 13 at the Sector 42 Indoor Badminton hall.

Rupinderdeep was a bronze medallist at Manipur National Games in 1999. She has won medals in many national meets also. However, Rupinderdep is not fully satisfied with the judo centre at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 21. She as well as children in the age group 6-12 complain that the centre lacks proper infrastructure for judo training.

This national meet is being hosted by the Amateur Judo Association of Chandigarh, with Mr Sidhharth Chattopadhyaya as President and Mr N.S. Thakur as secretary of the body. Rupinderdeep won silver medal in Junior Nationals and gold medal in 1997 the National School games held at Hisar. In the present Senior Nationals, she is confident in her weight category, which is less than 70 kg.

Babita Negi, a former city player and an international judoka now playing from the Central Industrial Security Force at Delhi, will also be seen in action.

Other city judokas who could be a force to reckon with include Chander Sekhar in below 66 kg, who had been a silver medallist in the All-India Inter Varsity Judo Meet, Jaswinder Handa, Dev Nath in below 56 kg, a bronze medallist at National School Games, Arjun Negi in below 66 kg- bronze medal at Inter Varsity Meet, Puneet Kumar in below 90 kg, a silver medallist at the National School Games, Sumita Jalan in below 44 kg, Sangeeta and Nirmala, and Gurmeet among others.

Judokas Aman Awasthi, who will take part in below 100 kg categary, and Munish Sharma in below 81 kg category, were of the opinion that the facilities in the city should be improved. The immediate requirement was to have fresh mats as the present ones had become obsolete.

The Senior Nationals, which is for above 18-year-old, will have nearly 500 judokas taking part in this four-day meet.

This national championship will be one of the factors in the selection of the Indian team for the Asia Cup, Commonwealth championship and more important Sydney Olympics. Punjab judokas had been the overall winners in the last National meets.

Meanwhile, one consignment of mats of international standards have been made available from NIS, Patiala, while second consignment of imported mats from High Altitude Centre(SAI), Shilaru (Shimla), could not be brought here today due to heavy snow fall at Shilaru and are expected tomorrow.

The Sector 42 indoor badminton hall, which had been under repairs for quite sometime and the venue for this meet was being spruced up for providing a stable platform for this prestigious championship.