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Bidis had the highest content of nicotine, followed by chewed tobacco (pan masalas) and cigarettes.

Misuse of antimicrobials has become one of the grave concerns of public health. In last two decades, this has been largely contributing in the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among all the pathogens. A 2013 report of Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, USA figured that at least 2 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection every year and as many as 23,000 people lost their life. A multi-country survey in Southeast Asia region conducted by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, identified several gaps in knowledge and awareness about the optimal use of antimicrobials and AMR. Following this, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, developed National Action Plan in the year 2017 to combat AMR. Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI) being a flagship programme of MoHFW holds the responsibility of ensuring safety of medicines used by India population and has recently identified AMR as one of the strategic priorities. This article intends to provide insights of the recent attempts and deliberate efforts made by PvPI in the containment of AMR in India and it also intends to sensitize healthcare fraternity on restricting AMR in public interest.

Background: Medication adherence in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients is often suboptimal resulting in complications. There has been a growing interest in using mobile apps for improving medication adherence. Objective: The objective of this work was to systematically review the clinical trials that have used mobile app–based interventions in T2DM patients for improving medication adherence. Methodology: A systematic search was performed to identify published clinical trials between January 2008 and December 2020 in databases—PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. All studies were assessed for risk of bias using quality rating tool from the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Results: Seven clinical studies having 649 participants were studied. The median sample size was 58 (range = 41-247) and the median age of participants was 53.2 (range = 48-69.4) years. All studies showed improvements in adherence; however, only three studies reported statically significant improvements in adherence measures. Selected studies were deemed as unclear in their risk of bias and the most common source of risk of bias among the studies was the absence of objective outcome assessment. Conclusions: Mobile apps appear to be effective interventions to help improve medication adherence in T2DM patients compared with conventional care strategies. The features of the App to improvise medical adherence cannot be defined based on the meta-analysis because of heterogeneity of study designs and less number of sample size. Systematically planned studies would set up applicability of mobile apps in the clinical management of T2DM.

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