80% of Indians don’t use essential drugs

New Delhi: 29th August 2011

An average Indian suffering from heart attack or stroke is seven times less likely to receive the inexpensive aspirin — the most commonly used anti-platelet drug — and 20 times less likely to receive statins than an average Canadian. In a first-of-its-kind study to quantify use of effective low cost drug treatments for heart disease and stroke scientists have found that four out of five patients from low-income countries like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan “reported receiving none of these essential drugs”. Presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Paris and published in the British medical journal Lancet, the study involved 1, 53, 996 adults from 17 countries.

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