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New health information resource now available across India

February 2007:  All Indian residents now have complementary access to reliable, up-to-date health research evidence on health care interventions from The Cochrane Library.   Thanks to sponsorship provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the online database is now available to 60 million Internet users in India.
The internationally renowned Cochrane Library is a collection of regularly updated evidence based healthcare databases, including gold-standard Cochrane Systematic Reviews, that can help clinicians and consumers make decisions about what treatments are best for them and their patients. This information is produced and assembled by The Cochrane Collaboration (www.cochrane.org), a UK registered international charity and are considered the leaders in their field.

"This is an important step in making high-quality health information available to professionals and the general public,” said Professor N.K. Ganguly, Director General of ICMR.  “Anyone in India with access to the Internet will now be able to use what is regarded as the world's best single source of evidence on the effects of different forms of health care".

“There is no doubt that this funded provision to The Cochrane Library will help bring Evidence-Based Medicine to the forefront of medical practice in India,” added Professor Prathap Tharyan from the Professor Bhooshanam V Moses Centre for Clinical Trials and Evidence Based Medicine at Christian Medical College, Vellore.  “The South East Asian Cochrane Centre is privileged to be actively involved in helping shape the future of medicine in India.”

Lorne Becker, Co-chair of The Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group was also delighted about the agreement: “The ICMR is a very forward thinking organisation and we feel that this agreement is a meeting of minds over medicine. We are hoping to be able to do even more good work in this part of the world and produce many Cochrane Reviews with Indian contributors.”

The Cochrane Library is available at  www.thecochranelibrary.com

~ ENDS ~

Notes for editors

1.  Source: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

2.  The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest medical research bodies in the world. 
In 1911, the Government of India set up the Indian Research Fund Association (IRFA) with the specific objective of sponsoring and coordinating medical research in the country. After independence, several important changes were made in the organisation and the activities of the IRFA. It was redesignated the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in 1949, with considerably expanded scope of functions. The ICMR is funded by the Government of India through the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
The Council's research priorities coincide with National health priorities such as control and management of communicable diseases, fertility control, maternal and child health, control of nutritional disorders, developing alternative strategies for health care delivery, containment within safety limits of environmental and occupational health problems; research on major non-communicable diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, blindness, diabetes and other metabolic and haematological disorders; mental health research and drug research (including traditional remedies). These efforts are undertaken with a view to reduce the total burden of disease and to promote health and well being of the population.

3.  The Cochrane Library contains high quality health care information, including Systematic Reviews from The Cochrane Collaboration. These Reviews bring together research on the effects of health care and are considered the gold standard for determining the relative effectiveness of different interventions. The Cochrane Collaboration (http://www.cochrane.org) is a UK registered international charity and the world's leading producer of systematic Reviews. It has been demonstrated that Cochrane Systematic Reviews are of comparable or better quality and are updated more often than the Reviews published in print journalsª.

4.  The Cochrane Library can be accessed at http://www.thecochranelibrary.com. Guest users may access abstracts for all Reviews in the database, and members of the media may request full access to the contents of the Library. For further information, see contact details below.

5.  A number of countries have national provisions by which some or all of their residents are able to access The Cochrane Library for free. These include:

Australia  www.nicsl.com.au/Cochrane
  All residents of Australia with access to the Internet can access The
Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding provided by the
Australian Government and administered by the National Institute of Clinical Studies
Denmark www.vifab.dk or www.sundhedsportalen.dk or www.deff.dk or www.cochrane.dk
All residents of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands) can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding for a national provision from Videns-og Forskningscenter for Alternativ Behandling (ViFAB), Den fælles offentlige sundhedsportal, Biblioteksstyrelsen and The Nordic Cochrane Centre.
England  www.nelh.nhs.uk/cochrane.asp
All residents of England with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding provided by the NHS Connecting for Health, National Library for Health.
Finland  www.terveysportti.fi
Access to The Cochrane Library is available in Finland for registered
users of Terveysportti-portal provided by Duodecim Medical
Publications Ltd.
Ireland All residents within the Island of Ireland can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding for a national provision by The Health Research Board in Dublin and The Research and Development Office in Belfast.
Latin and Central America and Carribbean http://cochrane.bireme.br
  All countries in Latin and Central America and Caribbean can access      The Cochrane Library for free via the Virtual Health Library BIREME      interface (in English, Spanish or Portuguese), thanks to funding by      BIREME / Pan- American Health Organisation (PAHO) / World      Health Organisation (WHO)
New Zealand http://www.moh.govt.nz/cochranelibrary or http://www.nzgg.org.nz/ or      http://www.cochrane.org.nz/
All residents of New Zealand with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library free, thanks to the District Health Boards and the New Zealand Ministry of Health. 
Norway  www.cochrane.no
All residents of Norway can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding for a national provision from The Norwegian Health Services Research Centre
Poland  http://www.aotm.gov.pl 
All residents of Poland with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding for a national provision by Agencja Oceny Technologii Medycznych  
Scotland  http://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/
All residents of Scotland with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding provided by the NHS Education for Scotland
Spain  http://www.update-software.com/Clibplus/ClibPlus.asp
South Africa http://www.sahealthinfo.org/evidence/databases.htm
The South African Cochrane Centre (SACC) offers a limited number of free access registrations to The Cochrane Library to African residents. To apply for a sponsorship please register at: http://www.sahealthinfo.org/SAHealthInfoUtils/index.jsp.
Sweden  www.sbu.se
All residents of Sweden with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to the funding provided SBU – Statens beredning för medicinsk utvärdering/The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care
Wales All residents of Wales with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library for free, thanks to funding provided by The Welsh Assembly Government.
The Canadian Province of New Brunswick        http://www.gnb.ca/0003/ 
Access to The Cochrane Library is available for free through the electronic resources section of the NBPLS website to all New Brunswickers who have a public library card thanks to funding provided by the partnership involving the New Brunswick Public Library Service (NBPLS), the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Libraries, and the Regional Health Authority (RHA) libraries
The Canadian Northwest Territories,
Nunavut, Yukon       http://www.thecochranelibrary.com
All Northern residents with access to the Internet can access The Cochrane Library for free thanks to funding provided by the Pan-Northern Agreement and the Indian and Inuit Branch of Health Canada.
The Canadian Province of Saskatchewan www.thecochranelibrary.com
All residents of Saskatchewan can access to The Cochrane Library for free by using public library facilities in the providence and remotely through their local library web site with a library card thanks to funding provided by the partnership involving the Health Quality Council, The Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre (University of Saskatchewan Site Group), the Multi-type Database Licensing Program, and the Saskatchewan Provincial Library
The US State of Wyoming   http://wyld.state.wy.us/dbloginform.html/ 
All residents can access The Cochrane Library free at the state’s Wyoming Libraries Database libraries, which include public, community college, and medical libraries thanks to funding provided by Wyoming State Legislature's Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee

6.  There are also several programmes, such as the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) that provide access in developing countries. To find out whether your country is included in any of these programmes/provisions, or to learn how to get access if you don’t already have it, please visit: http://www.thecochranelibrary.com.

If you would like to see a full list of Reviews published in the new issue of The Cochrane Library, or would like to request full access to the contents of The Library, please contact.

Contact: Julia Lampam
Tel:  +44 (0)1243 770668
Email:  jlampam@wiley.co.uk

ª Jadad AR, Cook DJ, Jones A, Klassen TP, Tugwell P, Moher M, et al. Methodology and reports of systematic Reviews and meta-analysies: a comparison of Cochrane Reviews with articles published in paper-based journal.