|
In the recent years, Gujarat has faced communicable diseases
like outbreak of Plague, Dengue hemorrhagic fever and Leptospirosis. W R Hegan,
state nodal officer, Integrated Diseases Surveillance Project (IDSP) said,
"Slow information flow was one of the reasons of outbreak of these diseases
leading to high mortality and morbidity". The outbreak of diseases in the
past has highlighted the urgency for a disease surveillance system so that early
warning signals are recognized and appropriate control measures initiated in
timely manner.
Due to high burden of this kind of diseases, the state's
Health Ministry wanted to bring in an efficient system of tracking diseases,
which would in turn help the administrators determine trends and establish a
mechanism to deal with these diseases; thus the IDSP was born under the state's
Health Ministry, turning out to be the backbone of the state's public health
delivery system.
Hegan points out that international health agencies have
forecasted Influenza pandemic. While, not all outbreaks can be prevented,
epidemic preparedness and precautionary measures can reduce the risk of
outbreaks, minimize their scale and lessen their impact on human suffering, he
explains.
|
|
|
'Time in reporting of
outbreak of diseases from remotest areas has dramatically reduced' |
|
-WR
Hegan,
state nodal officer, IDSP |
Diseases Surveillance
The project was intended to be the backbone of public health delivery system
in the state. "It's like a decentralized early warning surveillance
system that we have established. It gives us early warning signals of community
level health problems. Consequently this helps us gear up for effective response
and to determine the trends of a health problem over time," says Hegan.
The system provides essential data to monitor the progress of
ongoing disease control program and helps in optimizing the allocation of
resources. With the technical and financial support from the central government,
the IDSP has been implemented in 25 districts of the state.
IDSP covers various diseases, including water and vector borne;
vaccine preventable, respiratory infections; disease under eradication (Polio);
other international disease like Plague; HIV/AIDS; Unusual syndrome-other
emerging diseases NCD Risk Factors, Leptospirosis, Hepatitis A and E, Dengue,
Diphtheria and Unusual Syndrome, which have state priorities.
Tracing Footsteps
The state has established reporting units in districts, corporations and
medical colleges. Weekly reports are submitted through state's intranet,
Gujarat State Wide Area Network, to the state government. Surveillance Core
Group (SCG) and Surveillance Task Force (STF) have been set up at district and
state level. Regular weekly and monthly meetings are organized to make further
improvement in programs, points out Hegan.
The modules for IDSP have been prepared in regional languages
(Gujarati and English) for the Medical Officer and Paramedical, Laboratory
Technician. "We have been able to achieve standard reporting formats for
all. The IDSP weekly alert is prepared and circulated to all chief district
health officers, MOHs, Municipal Corporations and dean, Medical Colleges,"
he points out. "Due to the integration of private, rural, urban sectors,
medical colleges, tertiary care hospitals and IDSP reporting, no major epidemics
have occurred," claims Hegan.
Impact on End User
"As a result of the implementation of the IDSP, information on
occurrence of the diseases is now timely and regularly received from periphery
to district and state", says Hegan. "It not only saves us on the count
of time factor, we have also been able to do away with the manual filling
up", he adds.
Public health system is now capable of taking control measures
in time so that epidemic prone diseases are averted. This has helped reduce
mortality and morbidity due to major communicable diseases, Hegan sums up.
Urvashi Kaul
urvashik@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
| 
Print
Comment
Email
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Twitter
