Lt Gen DS Hooda, former GOC-in-C of the Northern Command of the Indian Army, has expressed hope as her sister, a cancer patient, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra requesting that the government expedite the approval and purchase of an FDA approved drug for the Indian market that showed positive results in cancer treatment.
Lt Gen Hooda, taking to Twitter has admitted that the tweet is posted with a personal interest and said his sister, Sushma Hooda, a cancer patient whose hope to survive is dwindling with each passing year may get a new life if the government approves this new drug for the Indian market.
Sushma’s letter to PM Modi said that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has tested and approved as the first line treatment a new drug called Sacituzumab Govitecanor (Trodelvy). The European Medicines Agency too has approved of it. She said that she is suffering from triple negative metastatic breast cancer which has very limited treatment options but this drug can lend her a new life. She is being treated at an army hospital.
Sushma Hooda requested the PM to expedite the approval and purchase of this drug for the Indian market and grant a lease of life to her and several others who have exhausted all other options of treatment. She wrote after the DCGI approves it and it subsequently reaches the army hospital, it can take several months and costs lots of lives which can be saved through the Prime Minister’s intervention only.
She said she reposes her faith in the system and importantly in the Prime Minister for an early reply to her letter of request. Sushma is the wife of a retired senior army officer Col. Karamvir Singh.