Know your DNA spit kit and its impact

As the new start up in Sandiego announced the kit to be released to market for testing your DNA and speculating the risks of getting heart diseases , diabetes , cancer , cancer and various other drug reactions. The kit costs 20 to 30 US dollars and easy to use as claimed by the biotech company. If this works out this would be a breakthrough in early detection and would lead to the early intervention and control for limiting the predisposing factors.

The start up kits is meant to collect sputum and then send that to the laboratory where it is tested for the DNA. The kit contains kit to collect saliva and a prepaid system of courier service to send the collected sample. The user can activate an account on company's website online and the report generated by the lab can be accessed by the user online . To be noted , these kind of facility for test of pregnancy , paternity test cholesterol and blood sugar existed earlier, but the genomic test will open up a new arena altogether, opening up a new sphere of control and management of the non communicable diseases which pose a big threat to the society in coming years. The validation by regulatory authorities are a concern.

Related issues :

Knowing predisposing conditions might lead to moral concerns about marriages, childbirth,effect on mental health , inheritance and several other social , financial and business decisions. It is highly complicated process and can trigger a social stigma without proper counselling.

Infant mortality due to malnutrition

We have passed cross twenty first century and vouch " health for all" but unfortunately statistics reveal, 50 % of death in children accounted to malnutrition in India. This is a sad state of affair. The ministry for WCD ( women and child development has proposed a surveillance system for backward districts and identification of clusters and cases of death due to Malnutrition.

NRHM, JnNURM , ICDS , Rajiv Gandhi national drinking water mission and national food security mission are already working on this and imparting their contributions, but is not enough,

A diligent approach is needed for identification of bottlenecks and immediate action needs to be taken.

Another Step

A medical technology park in the outskirts of Chennai city , exemption on customs duty on medical equipments and now tax rebate for hospitals coming up in urban areas and metros with a minimum bed size of 100, certainly positive indications of growth and will boost morale of the entrepreneurs who want to invest in infrastructure development in healthcare.

The long standing hesitation to invest in healthcare due to diversity in the business , dependence on various factors for success , longer break even period , costlier equipments , change of technology, and several other factors has seen motivating elements like above. This is just a start. The government has not only increased the health care budget to 22,300 crores ( 22.3 Trillion ) Indian rupees, but also taken initiatives to renovate the public healthcare in tertiary healthcare facilities, and continuing developments in primary healthcare.

Though this sounds to be impressive, we still have a long way to go. There is need of subsidies to small players like 20 to 50 bedded nursing homes which have good penetration and serve to a bigger crowd both below poverty line and middle economic class population.There are need of regulations which would not be stringent but would serve the purpose, There is need of a national commission to standardise the pay structure of all health care workers and diminish the disparities lying .

Hope we are moving to wards a real feel good, than telling ourselves "All Iz WELL"