Health security effort to boost global disease response

Top administration officials joined representatives from federal agencies and 26 nations to launch an international effort that will help to boost the global capacity to prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks, Feb. 13.

At the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, are speaking about the Global Health Security Agenda.

Joining them were officials from Finland, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, Japan, South Korea China, India, Indonesia and other participating countries.

Representatives from three international organizations in Washington and Geneva, including the World Health Organization, were there, along with officials from the departments of State, Defense and Agriculture, and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In advance of the international meeting, officials from the National Security Council, the Defense Department and CDC held a conference call with reporters to detail the U.S. plan to work even more closely with partners to strengthen the global disease response.

On the call were Laura Holgate, senior director for weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and threat reduction at the National Security Council; Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs; and CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden.

“With the Global Health Security agreement, we’re talking about making the world safer and more secure by strengthening our ability as an international community to prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks,” Holgate said.

Such diseases include Ebola and other hemorrhagic illnesses; flu; dengue fever; Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS; severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS; and other infectious diseases that arise in nature or that are accidentally or intentionally released, she added.

In 2007, most countries agreed to abide by updated International Health Regulations, or IHR, adopted two years earlier at the 58th World Health Assembly. The legally binding rules accepted country by country had been revised specifically to help in containing diseases that potentially could spread quickly worldwide.

The WHO set a five-year deadline for countries to ensure their national capacities to identify, investigate, assess and respond to such public health events. Continued…

source: www.dolphin-news.com

 

Rp.6 Miliar Untuk Kesehatan Gratis Bagi

KBRN, Sumenep: Masih banyaknya warga miskin di Sumenep, Madura, Jawa Timur, yang tidak tercaver Program Askes, Jamkesmas, dan Jamsostek mendapat perhatian Pemkab setempat.

Pemkab Sumenep melalui Dinas Kesehatan mengalokasikan anggaran sebesar Rp6 Miliar pelayanan kesehatan gratis khususnya bagi warga yang tidak mengantongi askes, jamkesmas, termasuk jamsostek.

“Sesuai Peraturan Bupati Nomer 4 2014 itu, dana tersebut diperuntukkan secara khusus bagi warga yang bukan peserta askes, jamkesmas dan jamsostek,” terang Kepala Dinkes Sumenep, Riska Anugera Rahadi, Kamis (20/2/2014).

Dijelaskannya dengan anggaran Rp6 Miliar itu, Pasien miskin khususnya Puskesmas dan Rumah Sakit Kelas 3 B, baik rawat inap maupun rawat jalan tidak dipungut sepersenpun, termasuk untuk kebutuhan obat.

“Anggaran Rp6 Miliar itu dalam rangka mendukung program Bupati mengenai pelayanan kesehatan gratis,” kata Riska.

Mantan Kepala Bidang Evaluasi dan Informasi RSUD Sumenep ini memastikan, warga miskin dipastikan tidak akan dipersulit untuk mendapat pelayanan kesehatan gratis itu karena persyaratannya cukup mudah.

Selama pasien tersebut tidak tercaver dalam askes, jamkesmas dan jamsostek, maka pasien cukup melampirkan surat keterangan miskin dari Kepala Desa setempat untuk mendapat pelayanan kesehatan gratis.

“Kedepan, tidak ada istilahnya pasien miskin miskin yang tidak terelayani karena tidak mempunyai biaya. Semua gratis dengan catatan ada keterangan miskin dari Kepala Desa,” pungkas Riska. (Faisal W/BCS).

sumber: rri.co.id

 

Indonesia Tersandera Masalah Gizi Ganda

Salah satu masalah kesehatan yang memprihatinkan di Indonesia saat ini adalah masalah gizi ganda yaitu masalah gizi kurang dan gizi lebih dengan berbagai risiko penyakit yang ditimbulkan. Pernyataan ini disampaikan oleh Ahli Gizi, Ade Heni Yulistia pada acara Coaching Clinic bertajuk “Baking with Bogasari Chesa New Innovation from Bogasari” di KidZania Jakarta, Rabu, 19/2.

“Masalah gizi ganda ini terdapat di pedesaan dan juga perkotaan,” tegasnya. Ia menjelaskan masalah gizi merupakan masalah perilaku. Untuk itu diperlukan acuan edukasi atau pendidikan tentang perilaku gizi yang baik dan benar.

Pedoman Umum Gizi Seimbang (PUGS), terang alumni Politeknik Kesehatan Bandung Jurusan Gizi 2012, adalah jawaban cerdas terkait perilaku gizi yang baik dan benar. PUGS memuat pesan-pesan dasar gizi seimbang yang bertujuan agar setiap orang berperilaku gizi yang baik dan benar sehingga memiliki gizi yang baik, seperti makan makanan yang beraneka ragam, membatasi konsumsi lemak, membiasakan makan pagi dan minum air putih secukupnya.

Acara Coaching Clinic ini juga dimeriahkan dengan relaunching tepung premiks cepat saji Chesa Bogasari dalam 5 varian yaitu Cookies, Pancake, Pao, Soes dan Truffle yang dihadiri para ibu rumah tangga berusia 25-35 tahun yang kebanyakan adalah para guru yang pada kesempatan yang sama mendampingi murid-muridnya bermain dan belajar di KidZania. Acara Coaching Class & Relaunching ini terselenggara berkat kerjasama PT Aryan Indonesia (KidZania Jakarta) dan Bogasari.

Pada kesempatan ini Chef Dody dari Bogasari Baking Center (BBC) membimmbing para ibu membuat kue dengan Chesa Bogasari.

sumber: jaringnews.com

 

Revolutionary Vaccine Breaks Refrigeration Barrier in Africa

For decades, distribution of vaccines in Africa and other warm regions has been hampered by the need to keep the vaccines refrigerated – a major challenge in remote areas without electric power. But the World Health Organization says a new vaccine aimed at preventing meningitis A can withstand temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius, and was found to be 100 percent effective during a trial study in Benin.

Researchers said that health workers in Benin have successfully immunized more than 155,000 people against meningitis A using the first vaccination to be approved for use without constant refrigeration, also known as the “cold chain.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the vaccine, which is known as MenAfriVac, can be stored for up to four days in temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius.

PATH is a U.S.-based non-profit organization that partnered with the WHO on the Meningitis Vaccine Project. Dr. Marie-Pierre Preziosi, the project’s director, said the new breakthrough could revolutionize the way vaccination campaigns are conducted in developing countries. She spoke to VOA from Ouagadougou.

“As you know, vaccines are usually kept in cold chains, between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. And so you have to have the whole capacity around the cold chain: that is freezers, ice packs, transportation fuel, electricity fuel, all of this. Sometimes, it is not only costly, but it is also very challenging to reach remote areas with such constraints,” said Preziosi.

Health experts said that because of the cold chain requirement, there is normally a lot of wasted vaccine vials during immunization campaigns, particularly during the “last mile” — the time from when the vaccine leaves the refrigerator at the district health center until it is injected into a person’s arm at the village level.

Many communities in Africa have no access to electricity and are often too remote to be reached before the ice packs in insulated coolers melt.

Preziosi said the flexibility of being able to transport the vaccine outside of the cold chain meant that only nine vaccine vials out of 15,000 had to be discarded during the trial study in Benin.

Being able to work outside the cold chain also meant that health workers didn’t have to travel to and from the district health center each day to replenish vaccine supplies. This allowed them to vaccinate more people in a shorter amount of time.

PATH’s vice president for product development, Dr. David Kaslow, said that removing the refrigeration requirement for MenAfriVac could also reduce costs.

“The one study that was done with the WHO looked at the modeled scenario, which is: what are all the costs that are incurred in that last mile? And really, one of the major costs, obviously, are the cold chain costs themselves… And so the analysis was done as to what is the cost savings. And it’s about 50 percent,” he noted. “On average, from 24 cents per dose delivered to 12 cents per dose delivered.”

Meningitis, which is the inflammation of the protective tissue that covers the brain and spinal cord, can lead to severe brain damage if left untreated and results in death in about 50 percent of cases.

The WHO said that while meningitis can be prevented with vaccines, more than one million suspected cases have been reported by countries in Africa’s “meningitis belt” over the past 20 years.

The Meningitis Vaccine Project said that following the MenAfriVac vaccination campaign in Benin, there were no reported cases of Meningitis A in any of the 150 vaccinated communities.

Kaslow said that it is now up to individual countries to take advantage of this success and allow health workers to use MenAfriVac within the new temperature conditions.

He said the next step will be for pharmaceutical developers to see if the refrigeration requirements for other vaccines, such as cholera, can also be changed.

source: www.voanews.com

 

Rising costs, overprescription head list of setbacks in Asian health care

HONG KONG–Plagued by cost overruns and a US$4.2 billion deficit, Taiwan’s National Health Insurance set out in 2012 to find out what lay behind the problem.

The results were a mixture of the expected and unexpected. Other cities, it turned out, were not paying their fair share, so the entire cost fell on Taipei. At the same time, patients were visiting hospitals more than anywhere else in the world and being prescribed many more drugs than they needed or could ever take.

In one instance, a patient who suffered from a range of ailments from high blood pressure to heart disease and asthma was given enough pharmaceutical products to last him 22 years, said Lee Chun-fu, an official with the Bureau of National Health Insurance that runs Taiwan’s healthcare system.

The issue of over-prescription of pharmaceuticals is visible not only in Taiwan but around the world.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as many as half of all medicines are inappropriately prescribed, dispensed or sold. Overprescription of medicine and overtreatment is emerging as a significant problem across Asia, one that governments are working to address.

For the WHO, the concern is health related. Medicines that are not prescribed properly can lead to health problems. Take antibiotics, for example. If not properly prescribed and taken, they can lead to the emergence of resistant bacteria.

This is already a problem with diseases such as tuberculosis, of which there are resistant strains emerging globally.

“Antibiotic resistance is rising for many different pathogens that are threats to health,” said Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another problem is fiscal. Improper or overprescription of drugs leads to huge cost overruns. This may be most visible in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s healthcare system operates through a national health insurance, which covers the entire population. Hospitals buy drugs directly from drug companies and sell them on to patients, although the National Health Insurance covers most of the cost.

The larger hospitals have the clout to negotiate steep discounts with the pharmaceutical companies and can make a tidy profit in the difference between what they pay for a drug and the fixed price that the government pays them.

It benefits doctors to prescribe as much as possible. A spokesperson for the National Health Insurance Civic Surveillance Alliance said the system puts a cap on prices for medicines but not on the quantities that are prescribed or distributed.

This “black hole” costs around US$340 million a year. In the last 15 years or so, Taiwan’s healthcare system has racked up some US$4.2 billion in deficits.

The problem is hardly unique to Taiwan.

Japan, which also has a well-established system of universal care under its national health insurance, has been under severe stress for several years, notes McKinsey & Co. Ltd., a management consulting firm.

Part of the problem is that rising wealth across the country encourages people to seek more care that combines with a lack of centralized controls over the allocation of resources.

Japan’s system of healthcare, known as kaihoken, was established in 1961. But in the past few years, a shortage of doctors has emerged. McKinsey’s 2011 findings note that some doctors see as many as 100 patients in a single day. Under such high levels of turnover, they tend to overprescribe drugs. This also helps the clinics that own in-house pharmacies.

Limit Services to Reduce Cost in Japan

source: www.chinapost.com.tw

 

RUU Tenaga Kesehatan Masuk Panja

Komisi IX DPR sepakat melanjutkan pembahasan RUU Tenaga Kesehatan bersama Kementerian Kesehatan (Kemenkes) lewat Panja. Menurut Ketua Komisi IX, Ribka Tjiptaning, pembahasan RUU tentang tenaga kesehatan (dokter, perawat, dan bidan) akan lebih fokus dalam sebuah panitia kerja (Panja). Pandangan itu pula yang disampaikan Ribka dalam rapat kerja antara Komisi IX DPR dengan Kemenkes di ruang sidang Komisi IX DPR, Senin (17/2).

Ribka mengatakan ada banyak hal dalam peraturan perundang-undangan lain yang berkaitan dengan kesehatan yang perlu diharmonisasi dalam RUU Tenaga Kesehatan. Langkah ini penting agar tujuan RUU Tenaga Kesehatan tercapai, yakni memberi perlindungan terhadap masyarakat untuk mendapat pelayanan kesehatan dari tenaga kesehatan. “Perlindungan pasien sangat penting,” kata politisi PDI Perjuangan itu.

Mengacu Tatib di DPR, Ribka melanjutkan, Panja RUU Tenaga Kesehatan terdiri dari separuh jumlah anggota Komisi IX, mewakili seluruh fraksi. Total anggota Panja Tenaga Kesehatan berjunlah 29 orang. Dalam rapat kerja sebelumnya, Komisi IX dan pemerintah sudah menyepakati 156 DIM. Sisanya sebanyak 412 DIM akan dibahas dalam Panja.

Pada kesempatan yang sama anggota Komisi IX, Sri Rahayu, mengatakan ada beberapa pasal RUU Tenaga Kesehatan yang perlu dicermati. Salah satunya, tentang kesejahteraan bagi tenaga kesehatan. Menurutnya, hal tersebut harus dipikirkan apakah pengaturan terkait kesejahteraan tenaga medis itu diatur lewat peraturan pelaksana atau diperinci dalam RUU Tenaga Kesehatan.

Selain itu, Sri melihat RUU Tenaga Kesehatan kurang jelas mengatur perlindungan tenaga kesehatan. “Perlindungan seperti apa, itu perlu dipikirkan detail supaya dokter sebagai pelayan kesehatan diberi perlindungan sebagaimana hak-haknya,” paparnya.

Menanggapi hal itu Wamenkes, Ali Gufron Mukti, mengatakan berbagai masukan yang disampaikan Komisi IX akan dipertimbangkan dalam RUU Tenaga Kesehatan. Namun yang jelas ia menyebut RUU Tenaga Kesehatan ditujukan agar masyarakat mendapat pelayanan kesehatan yang terbaik. Misalnya, memperoleh segala informasi yang tepat terkait pelayanan kesehatan yang diberikan dan hak-haknya terpenuhi.

Selain itu RUU Tenaga Kesehatan bagi Ali penting untuk melindungi tenaga kesehatan sebagai pemberi layanan. Menurutnya perlindungan itu harus mencakup individu atau institusinya. Sehingga, tenaga kesehatan dapat terlindungi secara hukum ketika menjalankan tugasnya. Misalnya, jika terjadi sebuah kasus dalam pelayanan kesehatan, maka mekanisme penyelesaian utama yang harus ditempuh yaitu lewat lembaga seperti Majelis Kehormatan Disiplin Kedokteran Indonesia (MKDKI). Tapi kalau diperlukan maka kasusnya dapat berlanjut ke ranah pidana atau kriminal.

“Kami ingin melindungi masyarakat sebagai pengguna dari jasa layanan kesehatan tapi kami juga ingin pada saat yang sama bisa memberikan kepastian dan perlindungan hukum bagi petugas kesehatan itu,” ucap Ali.

Tak kalah penting, Ali menjelaskan RUU Tenaga Kesehatan bakal mengatur kesejahteraan tenaga kesehatan. Sehingga tenaga kesehatan mendapat insentif yang baik. “Kami ingin ada koordinasi antar berbagai tenaga kesehatan sehingga dapat bersatu dalam melayani masyarakat,” pungkasnya.

sumber: www.hukumonline.com

 

How Pakistan’s polio strain could affect world health

Just a few weeks ago, 11-month-old Shaista was pulling herself up, giggling as she took her first wobbly steps with the helping hand of her teenage mother.

Then the polio virus struck and Shaista was no longer able to stand, her legs buckling beneath her weight. Today, her mother cries a lot and wonders what will become of her daughter in Pakistan’s male-dominated society, where a woman’s value is often measured by the quality of her husband.

“It is not a hardship just for the child, but for the whole family,” said the child’s 18-year-old mother, Samia Gul. “It is very difficult for a poor family like us. She will be dependent on us for the rest of her life.”

Shaista is one of five new polio cases to surface in Pakistan in just the first month of this year. Last year, Pakistan recorded 92 new cases, beating Nigeria and Afghanistan — the only other polio-endemic countries — by almost 2 to 1, the World Health Organization said.

Pakistan’s beleaguered battle to eradicate polio is threatening a global, multi-billion-dollar campaign to wipe out the disease worldwide. Because of Pakistan, the virus is spreading to countries that were previously polio-free, U.N officials say.

“The largest polio virus reservoir of the world,” is in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, according to WHO.

Shaista and her parents share a two-room mud house with a couple of goats, a half-dozen squawking chickens and 10 other relatives in Pakistan’s western Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, or KPK, province, where Islamic militants often gun down health workers distributing vaccines and send suicide bombers to blow up police vehicles that protect them.

Fresh cases of polio — traced through genetic sequencing to the Pakistani strain of the disease — are showing up in countries that were previously polio-free, including Syria and Egypt, as well as in the Gaza Strip, said Ban Khalid Al-Dhayi, the spokeswoman for UNICEF in Pakistan. UNICEF is tasked with persuading a reluctant tribal population that lives along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan — perhaps one of the most dangerous places on the planet — to vaccinate their children.

“A lot of countries that spent so much money and resources eradicating polio are worried,” Al-Dhayi said in an interview.

It wasn’t so long ago — 1988 — that more than 350,000 people, most of them children under 5, were afflicted by polio in 125 countries where the disease was endemic. Today the disease is endemic in only three.

Last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a multi-billion-dollar charity that funds polio vaccinations, vowed to wipe out the crippling disease by 2018.

Underlining the danger that Pakistan poses to achieving that goal, Al-Dhayi said there are 350,000 Pakistani children in just one small area of the country who have not been vaccinated.

The area — North and South Waziristan — is too dangerous for health workers to venture. Islamic militants, many with ties to al-Qaida, banned polio vaccinations there in 2012 to press their demand that the United States end its use of drones to target their hideouts.

Militants have also created suspicion among ultraconservative parents in Pakistan’s deeply religious northwest, saying the polio vaccine will make their children impotent. The vaccine, they claim, is a ploy by the West to limit the world’s Muslim population.

But health workers and militants alike agree the biggest setback was the highly publicized use of a Pakistani doctor and a vaccination ruse to ferret out al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Dr. Shakil Afridi is in jail in Pakistan for his role in the CIA operation that uncovered bin Laden’s hideout.

While Afridi never got DNA samples from the bin Laden family, his involvement in the covert operation that led to bin Laden’s death caused residents to look with suspicion on many vaccination programs. Devastating for the polio campaign were the images of Afridi standing beside a banner promoting polio vaccinations as television commentators told of his collusion with the CIA.

“We have deep sensitivity about the polio vaccination after the martyrdom of the great mujahed and leader of Muslims, Sheikh Osama bin Laden,” Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told The Associated Press. “We still have strong suspicions that the vaccination campaign could be used again and again to spy on Muslims and the mujahedeen.”

UNICEF is trying to get Pakistan’s senior Islamic clergy to support the polio campaign, with some success, according to Al-Dhayi. Among those recruited is the so-called father of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq.

“The effort is really intensive and proving positive,” she said, but the clock is ticking. “Pakistan is the worst of the three (polio-endemic countries) in terms of the number of cases and the complexity.”

source: www.dailytribune.com

 

Pemerintah Didesak Naikkan Harga Rokok

Murahnya harga rokok disinyalir menjadi salah satu pemicu tingginya jumlah perokok di Indonesia. Karena itu, sejumlah kalangan mendesak agar pemerintah segera menaikkan pajak dan cukai rokok yang berimbas pada naiknya harga rokok di Indonesia.

“Sepanjang harga rokok masih murah, maka sulit bagi kita menurunkan jumlah perokok di Indonesia,” kata Ketua Komnas Pengendalian Tembakau (komnas PT) Prijo Sidhipramono, kemarin.

Tak hanya murah, Indonesia sampai saat ini juga belum memliki regulasi terkait penjualan rokok. Siapa saja yang bisa menjual rokok dan siapa saja yang boleh membeli rokok. Tanpa regulasi demikian, maka anak-anak muda termasuk anak sekolah dan mahasiswa akan leluasa membeli produk rokok.

“Apalagi rokok di Indonesia boleh dibeli secara eceran. Diwarung-warung dan lampu merah sangat mudah didapatkan. Bisa utang pula,” lanjut Prijo.

300 PERSEN

Di Singapura misalnya, harga rokok sangat tinggi. Harga perbungkus mencapai Rp85 ribu. Dengan harga yang mahal tersebut, maka hanya kalangan orang berduit saja yang mampu membeli rokok.

“Jadi pemerintah perlu membuat regulasi untuk menaikkan harga rokok yang tinggi, sehingga tidak bisa dijangkau oleh kelompok kelas menengah ke bawah,” katanya.

Menurut Prijo, pajak rokok harus dinaikkan 300 persen sehingga mau tak mau industri rokok menaikkan harga produksinya.

Seluruh negara di dunia saat ini melakukan hal yang sama. Hanya Indonesia saja yang belum melakukan hal tersebut. Makanya banyak perusahan rokok yang menjadikan Indonesia sebagai pasar potensial dari berbagai jenis rokok. (inung/o)

sumber: www.poskotanews.com

 

Riset & Teknologi Demi Manfaat Kesehatan

Lomba dan kerjasama bidang riset dan teknologi terkait bidang farmasi, kedokteran, pangan fungsional, life-sciences dan teknologi kesehatan. Tujuannya agar hasilnya bermanfaat bagi industri dan masyarakat luas.

Menteri negara Riset dan Teknologi Gusti Muhamad Hatta di Kementerian Riset dan Teknologi Republik Indonesia, Thamrin, Jakarta Pusat, baru-baru ini mengatakan, “Ilmu dan teknologi saat ini berkembang sangat cepat, sehingga product life-cycle menjadi semakin singkat dengan adanya penemuan-penemuan baru yang didapatkan semakin cepat. Sinergi yang kuat antara peneliti dengan industri menjadi kebutuhan bentuk kerjasama A-B-G (Academic, Bussiness, Government) agar perkembangan teknologi yang ada dapat didorong untuk bisa segera dimanfaatkan oleh industri maupun masyarakat.”

Sedangkan Presiden Direktur PT Kalbe Farma Tbk Irawati Setiady mengatakan, “Kesepakatan bersama ini dibuat untuk saling sharing sumber daya yang ada. Baik sumber daya manusia, sarana dan prasarana serta network antara kami dan Kemenristek.”

“Sebagai perusahaan yang percaya bahwa inovasi kunci penting bagi kemajuan bangsa, kami akan terus berkomitmen mengembangkan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi serta menumbuhkan budaya inovasi di masyarakat,” jelas Irawati.

Kesepakatan tersebut menjadi media beberapa kegiatan penelitian dan pengembangan IPTEK di bidang kesehatan, yang Kalbe lakukan bersama Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, Pusat Peraga IPTEK, Pusat Penelitian Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Teknologi PUSPITEK.

Menurutnya, salah satu bentuk kerjasama yang sudah berlangsung sejak 2008: Ristek-Kalbe Science Award 2014, program penghargaan bagi peneliti dan hasil penelitian terbaik di Indonesia bidang farmasi, kedokteran, pangan fungsional, life-sciences dan teknologi kesehatan.

“Program Ristek-Kalbe ini diadakan dua tahun sekali, dan animo peneliti yang mengikuti program ini juga meningkat 20 persen setiap periodenya,” jelas Ketua Umum Panitia Ristek-Kalbe Science Awards 2014 Pre Agusta.

Ia menambahkan dengan mengatakan, “Sosialisasi program ini juga didukung Badan dan Institusi Penelitian di bawah koordinasi Kementerian Ristek dan Teknologi sehingga diharapkan jumlah peserta semakin lebih banyak lagi.”

Dewan Juri RKSA 2014: Amin Soebandrio (Guru Besar Mikrobiologi Fakultas Kedokteran UI), Wayan Budiastra (Staf Ahli Menristek/Rekayasa Pangan IPB), Listyani Wijayanti (Deputi Kepala BPPT Bidang Teknologi Agroindustri dan Bioteknologi), Wahono Sumaryono (Penasihat Ahli Deputi Kepala BPPT Bidang Teknologi Agroindustri dan Bioteknologi), Yeyet Cahyati Sumirtapura (Guru Besar Sekolah Farmasi ITB) Sofia Mubarika Haryana (Guru Besar Fakultas Kedokteran UGM) Maggy Thenawidjaja Suhartono (Guru Besar Departemen Ilmu dan Teknologi Pangan IPB) dan Yahdiana Harahap (Guru Besar Fakultas Farmasi UI)

Sosialisasi dan pendaftaran peserta program RKSA terbuka sejak 11 Februari 2014 sampai dengan 26 Juni 2014. Peserta wajib mengirimkan berkas penelitian: formulir pendaftaran, profile peserta, ringkasan penelitian dan full paper penelitian, foto diri dan dan lain sebagainya yaang bisa terunduh melalui kalbescienceawards.com.[aji]

sumber: gayahidup.inilah.com

 

Kalbe Farma Sets Aside $41m to Finance Acquisition of a Health-Food Producer

Kalbe Farma, a local pharmaceutical firm, sets aside Rp 500 billion ($41.3 million) to finance its planned acquisition of a health-food producer this year.

The company will fund the acquisition from its own funds.

“The acquisition fund doesn’t come from our capital expenditure this year,” said Vidjongtius, finance director at Kalbe Farma as quoted by the Investor Daily.

Kalbe has been scouting the market and been in talks with more than 10 companies in Indonesia. The report did not identify the potential acquisition targets.

Unilever Indonesia is one of the listed food companies in the country.

Kalbe Farma said on Wednesday that it has allocated between Rp 1 trillion and Rp 1.2 trillion for capital expenditure this year to boost its production capacity.

The company also aims its sales growth and net income to reach 14 percent and 16 percent, respectively, supported by the development of each division.

“Kalbe plans to introduce three to five products of each division this year,” said Irawati Setiady, president director at Kalbe Farma, as quoted by the Investor Daily.

The company will keep on developing its unbranded generic medicines, which it has been producing in Cikarang, West Java, since 2012. It has also completed its oncology production facility in Pulogadung, East Jakarta, on Jan. 23, it said in the press release.

In its fast-food division, Kalbe plans to continue the construction of a production facility for nutritional drinks, which is expected to be completed in mid-2015.

The company seeks to develop into a global brand with a presence in countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Nigeria.

It will expand its sales area and boost its export to 5 percent from below 4 percent previously.

“We usually work together with local companies to help distribution,” Kalbe said as quoted by Investor Daily.

The company has built a plant in Nigeria, which focuses on medicine and food production.

The company reported a 17.4 percent increase in revenue to Rp 16.01 trillion last year compared to the year before. Its net income rose 10.8 percent last year from the previous year.

Shares of Kalbe Farma rose 0.7 percent to Rp 1,410 on the Indonesia Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

source: www.thejakartaglobe.com