Rare Diseases : In News
The Delhi High Court issued directions aimed at improving the availability of so-called “orphan drugs”, which are medications used to treat “rare diseases”.
- Rare Diseases is a health condition of low prevalence that affects a small number of people compared with other prevalent diseases in the general population.
- There are 7,000-8,000 classified rare diseases, but less than 5% have therapies available to treat them.
- A condition is considered to be a rare disease if its prevalence is less than one case per 1,000 population.
- In India, rare diseases are categorised into three groups based on the nature and complexity of available treatment options.
- Group 1 includes diseases that can be treated with a one-time curative procedure.
- Group 2 diseases require long-term or lifelong treatment which are relatively less costly and have shown documented benefits, but patients need regular check-ups.
- Group 3 diseases are those for which effective treatments are available, but they are expensive and must often continue lifelong.
- There are challenges in selecting the right beneficiaries for these treatments.
