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Global Update Indian Pediatrics 2002; 39:318-319 |
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News in Brief |
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Money buys merit A tiny advertisement in local newspapers recently promised sure shot admissions to the PG course in AIIMS. AIIMS authorities informed the police. An armed decoy went posing as a prospective student, complete to the last detail including a fake admission roll number. He was asked to deposit Rs 1.5 million and wait for the papers in a hotel the night before the exam. The gang was busted and details reveal that around 18 students had already paid around a million rupees each (eBMJ 18 Jan 2002). Vaccine watch The American Immunization schedule: The CDC’s advisory Committee on Immu-nization Practices which reviews immuniza-tion schedules in USA every year has brought the recommendations for 2002. The highlights include the preference for Hepatitis B vaccine at birth, assessing children between 24 months to 18 years to see if they need any catch up vaccination, the importance of a visit at 11-12 years when immunization status must be reviewed and 3 vaccines for selected at risk groups which include pneumococcal, influenza and hepatitis A. The American schedule differs from the Indian one in several ways. For example, they routinely use the inactivated polio vaccine and the acellular pertussis vaccine (http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publication/VIS). Knowing what we need GAVI (Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization) is called the billion dollar fund because of the large donation from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. It was set up to increase immunization levels in poor countries with public and private sector co-operation. But a study by a UK charity "Save the Children" and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical health highlights it’s many failings. It was conducted in 4 countries - Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana and Lesotho. Though it had improved immunization levels, in many places it was simply increasing public awareness of costly new vaccines and creating a market for them without detailed advice and cost versus benefit analysis e.g., Ghana was given 10 days to decide whether it needed a new Hepatitis B vaccine which finally doubled the cost of their national immunization sche-dule. How sustainable is the blind introduction of new vaccines in extremely poor countries when the health delivery infrastructure is in shambles needs examination ( eBMJ 19 Jan 2002). Genetics Carbon copy cat The worlds first cloned cat has been born and the news of her birth is already on-line. She was born by transplanting the DNA of a tortoiseshell cat into an egg cell whose nucleus had been removed. It was then implanted into a surrogate mother. Of 87 implanted embryos she is the sole survivor. This is being greeted as the first step to pet cloning ( Nature 14 Feb. 2002).
Gouri Rao Passi, |
