“We are trying to address rare disorders”

Recently, Bengaluru-based Vikram Hospital opened a state-of-the-art ‘Center of Excellence’ for Huntington Disease. In the coming time, the hospital is also planning to open up new exclusive clinics for various other rare disorders to fill the void of care in the health sector. Dr Prashanth LK, Consultant Movement Disorders Specialist, Vikram Hospital, Bengaluru gives more details on the hospital’s plan in an interaction with Usha Sharma

- Usha Sharma

Tell us how big is the rare disease market in India? And in the last 10 years, how many rare diseases have been found in India?

According to definition, a rare movement disorder is one whose prevalence is less than 50 per 100,000 population. They are ‘rare’ only by terminology and account for more than 7000 medical disorders. Hence overall, they constitute about 6-8 per cent of population. Keeping this in picture, India constitutes 1/5th of this global scenario. Many of these disorders require dedicated healthcare services and some of them have dramatic medical care. Because of rarity of these disorders, most of these are usually misdiagnosed and do not get proper interventions.

Recently, Vikram Hospital has opened a state-of-the-art center of excellence for Huntington’s disease, tell us about the objective behind making an investment?

Huntington’s disease comes under the category of rare movement disorders. More prevalent disorders like Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s, dementia, diabetes are well recognised leading to general population awareness, special clinics and government policies follow with them. This is lacking in rare movement disorders. We are trying to address this void in healthcare by creating niche clinics for specialised disorders which require team efforts for management. These clinics will create awareness in public, support to the families and finally getting required support from government and insurance companies for supporting them.

Huntington disease (HD) is one amongst the rare disease portfolio, how chronic it is?