New Healthcare Opportunities

Context: New frontiers open up in biotechnology, and the use of health data can further preventive healthcare.

 

New possibilities in healthcare: Biotechnology and genomic medicine and leveraging millions of data points

• Messenger-RNA technology applications: Success of COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax vaccine using mRNA technology calls for further applications such as cancer cure.
• Renewed interest in the study of viruses: Useful viruses can be developed Eg. Bacteriophages can be used to kill multidrug-resistant bacteria.
• Preventive healthcare: Data captured by wearable devices can provide vital inputs to preventive healthcare, particularly in non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

Way forward

• Leverage advantageous position of India: India has the manpower, biodiversity and different agroclimatic conditions for all kinds of interventions in animal, including human and plant biological systems.
• Central government shall come up with appropriate and enabling regulation to set ethical standards and norms of propriety.
• Revamp healthcare business model: Shift from paying hospitals to treat people if they fall ill to paying healthcare providers to keep people healthy and treat them if they fall ill.
  • Best placed states to try out such model like Kerala and Tamil Nadu – their levels of literacy and democratic agency are relatively high, and the government machinery works.