If health has to be affordable to all, the Indian academia needs to pushed harder to throw up solutions for medical problems. We are moving in the right direction, said Prof Samir Brahmachari, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), here on Monday.

Brahmachari was in the city to address a gathering of international experts at the 9th INDEPTH meeting on poverty, health and demographic dynamics, at Hinjewadi. The INDEPTH network has 34 community-based health and demographic surveillance system sites in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania. Vadu Hospital is one of the sites near Pune that is hosting the meeting.

“While the CSIR’s initiative of using solar electric rickshaws has helped Delhi-based cycle rickshaw pullers reduce physical stress and also bring down TB, its new open source drug discovery programme has had the world’s scientists getting connected in a virtual laboratory,” Brahmachari said.

The CSIR chief spoke about how scientific knowledge has to be leveraged for social and economic solutions and cited the example of the Vadu rural health programme and the Ballabgad health and demographic surveillance system at Haryana that provided a platform for social transformation. These programmes are basically a public-private partnership to provide medical care to those in the rural areas.

Elaborating on the theme of scientists working closely to find solutions for complex problems such as infectious diseases, Brahmachari said the open source drug discovery (OSDD) programme had 1,400 scientists working on 100 projects in a virtual lab. “The idea is to discover novel therapies for neglected tropical diseases,” he said, pointing out that the OSDD is a unique opportunity for scientists, doctors, technocrats, students and others with diverse expertise to work for a common cause.

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