Emerging Pharmaceutical Sciences and Innovation

Public Health Policy in India: Implementation, Outcomes, and Equity: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

2026-08-09T01:55:04+00:00

India's public health landscape has undergone substantial transformation over the past two decades driven by ambitious government programmes and progressive policy reforms. However, the translation of policy into equitable health outcomes remains uneven across states and socioeconomic strata. This study evaluates the implementation effectiveness of major national public health policies in India, examines epidemiological trends, analyses state-level disparities in health expenditure and outcomes, and identifies structural bottlenecks impeding universal health coverage. A cross-sectional, mixed-methods design was employed. Secondary data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5, 2019–21), National Health Accounts (NHA) 2019–20, and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 were triangulated with programmatic data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and policy content analysis were conducted. Maternal mortality decreased from 384 to 86 per 100,000 live births (2000–2023). Full immunization coverage rose to 91% following Mission Indradhanush. PM-JAY enrolled over 241 million beneficiaries by 2022–23 but hospitalization utilization remained low among the poorest quintile. Non-communicable disease (NCD) burden increased by 44–133% across categories. Substantial inter-state disparities persisted, with Bihar recording an infant mortality rate of 48 compared to 7 in Kerala. India has achieved significant gains in maternal and child health, yet equity gaps and the emerging NCD burden necessitate a reoriented policy framework that increases public health expenditure, addresses workforce maldistribution, and strengthens primary care infrastructure.

Isolation and Characterization of Bioactive Compounds from Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Drug Development

2026-08-09T01:55:30+00:00

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and the search for safe, selective, and affordable anticancer agents continues to drive pharmaceutical research. Medicinal plants represent a vast and largely untapped reservoir of structurally diverse bioactive compounds, several of which have already been translated into clinically approved chemotherapeutics, including the vinca alkaloids, taxanes, camptothecin derivatives, and podophyllotoxin analogues. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the isolation and characterization of plant-derived bioactive compounds and their development as anticancer drug candidates. We summarize conventional and emerging extraction techniques, chromatographic isolation strategies, and spectroscopic methods used for structural elucidation; describe the major phytochemical classes, alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolics, terpenoids, and saponins, and their molecular mechanisms of cytotoxicity; discuss translational approaches including nanotechnology-based delivery, plant biotechnology for scalable production, and computational drug discovery; and outline the remaining challenges and future directions for moving plant-derived anticancer leads from bench to bedside. A divergent radial workflow diagram and four summary tables are provided to consolidate the extraction-to-clinic pipeline for natural anticancer drug development.

Isolation and Characterization of Bioactive Compounds from Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Drug Development in Tanzania: A Review

2026-09-02T07:13:43+00:00

Cancer remains a growing public health challenge in Tanzania and across sub-Saharan Africa, where limited access to conventional chemotherapy and high treatment costs continue to drive reliance on medicinal plants as therapeutic alternatives. Tanzania harbors exceptional floristic diversity and a long-documented tradition of ethnomedical cancer treatment, yet the systematic isolation, structural characterization, and pharmacological validation of anticancer bioactive compounds from its flora remain comparatively underdeveloped relative to neighboring East African countries. This review synthesizes current knowledge on medicinal plants traditionally used for cancer management in Tanzania, the extraction and chromatographic isolation techniques applied to recover their bioactive constituents, the spectroscopic and spectrometric methods used for structural elucidation, and the in vitro and in vivo evidence supporting their anticancer activity. Particular attention is given to terpenoids, flavonoids, and alkaloids as the dominant classes of cytotoxic phytochemicals reported from East African flora, and to the structure-activity relationships that underpin their mechanisms of action. The review further identifies methodological, regulatory, and conservation-related challenges that constrain translation of ethnobotanical leads into validated drug candidates, and proposes priorities for future research, including bioassay-guided fractionation, dereplication-based metabolomics, and strengthened intellectual property and benefit-sharing frameworks. Collectively, the evidence indicates that Tanzanian medicinal plants represent an underexploited reservoir for anticancer drug discovery that merits coordinated, multidisciplinary investigation.