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Hepatitis
B is one of the most dreaded diseases. It is 100 times more
infectious than AIDS and it kills more people in a day than
AIDS kills in a year's time. Hepatitis B spreads though contact
of contaminated blood & body fluids like saliva, sweat,
tears, vaginal secretions etc. It has been established that
one in every twenty person is a carrier of Hepatitis B. since
it can infect anybody anywhere, the fact is that we all are
at risk. The irony is that there is no sure cure for Hepatitis
B, vaccine being the only cure.
The MNCs have ruled the Hepatitis B market in India till recently.
They held an advantage as they were the early entrants and
had a technological edge. The MNCs major focus was on the
medical fraternity, especially the pediatricians. The access
to Hepatitis B vaccine was limited due to high price and the
market was limited to only the upper-end of the population.
The large middle-class was unaware until the Indian players
entered the Hepatitis B market. The first indigenously developed
vaccine was Shanta Biotech's, Shanvac-B. Bharat Biotech, with
its pioneering and incessant research introduced Revac-B,
the immensely effective Recombinant Vaccine for Hepatitis-B,
in 1998.
Because
of Indian players, the vaccine has become affordable to the
ordinary people and the government has recently announced
its decision to include Hepatitis B in its list of compulsory
immunizations. The vaccine will be fifth in the government's
immunization programme, after measles, BCG (bacille calmette
guerin), DPT (diptheria, pertusis and tetanus) and polio.
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