Misinformation, powered by the latest technology, spreads like wildfire. Since almost all big media houses maintain social media pages which are followed by millions of people, they can easily convince innocent minds with corrupt or unchecked news. Apart from lay readers, the organisations which provide healthcare services and solutions are often the biggest victims of such misleading and false information. For such organisations, negative news can be a huge problem, and they are often forced to resort to high-risk reputation management exercises. It is in this context that technologies and tools that monitor and manage people’s perceptions and emotions on social media gain significance. While this trend is common to several industries, what makes its use by the pharma and medical industry unique is the rather complicated structure of the healthcare industry itself. For this reason, the technology used to analyze market responses for healthcare products is different from that used to analyze the response to a fashion brand or a home appliance. This is because capturing the pulse of the healthcare market involves taking into account the feedback and reactions from various stakeholders, including doctors, patients, trade channels, the media and the general public. Despite such challenges, pharma and healthcare companies can ill afford to ignore social media chatter chatter, particularly during a global pandemic, avers DR RENJIT NAIR, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Germin8 Solutions Pvt Ltd (Germin8) —a Big Data analytics company focused on AI-based social media research and analysis, in this month’s Straight Talk with Editor C H UNNIKRISHNAN. Edited excerpts:
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Esta historia es de la edición December 2020 de Future Medicine India.
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Early Reports On Omicron Encouraging: Anthony Fauci
Even as the Omicron variant of coronavirus is spreading across the world quickly, early reports suggest that it may cause less severe disease than the Delta variant, says Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, US.
Air Pollution Reduces 8 Years Of Life Expectancy In India
India registers 18 percent of deaths annually due to air pollution and related diseases, while nationwide socioeconomic inequalities persist in asthma diagnosis across India
Importance Of Adhering To Covid Appropriate Behaviour
As the efficacy of existing vaccines has been proven to be inadequate against Omicron, our only hope from the jab is to reduce the severity of the disease, highlighting the importance of adhering to covid appropriate behaviour
AstraZeneca's new covid drug AZD7442 shows 83% prevention and 88% treatment efficacy
AstraZeneca, which announced the latest data from Phase III trials of its new Covid-19 drug -- AZD7442 -- said both the prevention and outpatient treatment studies showed robust efficacy from a onetime intramuscular (IM) dose of the long-acting antibody combination.
VACCINES IN YOUR POCKET
DR. SAUMYA SWAMINATHAN Cheif Scientist, World Health Organisation
DIABETES, AT CLOSE TO 91 MILLION CASES, ACCOUNTS FOR 25% OF ALL NCDS IN INDIA
The disease incidence, which increases very rapidly in individuals above 35 years of age, accounts for 12.8 million DALYs, 6.7 million YLDs
EXPERTS PREDICT THIRD WAVE IN INDIA WITH MORE THAN A LAKH DAILY CASES IN FEBRUARY
The active cases have come down as compared July leveld, the threat of new variants is looming large.
END INEQUALITIES TO MEET THE TARGET OF ENDING AIDS
Forty years after the first AIDS case was reported, and 35 years since the first case in India, HIV still threatens us. Today, the world is off track from delivering on the shared commitment to end AIDS by 2030.
CONVENTIONAL LINEN IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CULPRITS IN HOSPITAL ACQUIRED AS WELL AS SURGICAL SITE INFECTIONS
The ‘green colour’ linen is synonymous with hospitals, as it has been in use for centuries in hospitals world over, especially the conventional healthcare settings. But how many, even in the medical community, are really conscious about the responsibility for and the critical role of this piece of medical accessory in ensuring patient safety? Evidence from most hospitals in India indicates that not many are aware of the standards, and even if they are, not many bother with them. Again, going by real world experience, there exists another paradox. Though the actual cost of the repeated use of the linen is higher than the cost of single-use disposables (recommended in modernday care), it is still being used in a large majority of hospitals and clinics in India — because it is the convention. Therefore, transformation hesitance is more of a mindset issue rather than ignorance or economics. Most in the industry also oppose quality regulations in the country. In a market where hundreds of textile weavers and cloth merchants turned medical mask and accessory manufacturers overnight during the Covid pandemic, the market situation serves the unscrupulous minds who only eye the profits. However, there are a handful of local companies, besides the large organised players, who stick to quality products in this predominently price conscious market due to internal SOPs or pure commitment. For JAMES GEORGE, Founder and Managing Director at Kochi-based Careon Healthcare Solutions, it is more of a personal commitment. In a freewheeling interview with Editor CH UNNIKRISHNAN, George says that the primary reason behind the rise of unscrupulous players in the medical disposables market is lack of awareness among the users and the patients. Edited excerpts:
UK approves sotrovimab as new covid treatment for high risk adults
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the drug regulator of the UK, has approved sotrovimab, branded as Xevudy, a new biological drug to fight Covid-19. The drug was found effective to reduce the likelihood of hospital admission and death by about 79 percent in high-risk adults.
