Health surveillance unit in city soon: Govt

PATNA: Additional chief secretary (health) Pratyaya Amrit on Saturday said a metropolitan surveillance unit would be established in Patna soon with the assistance of the central government to respond promptly in the event of outbreak of infectious diseases.
Addressing a workshop on ‘Expansion of IDSP/IHIP in Bihar’, organised by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Union ministry of health and family welfare and the State Health Society, Bihar (SHSB), Amrit said, “India’s response and preparedness in digital technology and the game-changing artificial intelligence, which will have to be primarily led by the younger generation, will ultimately determine its future prospects.”
The event was organized in association with the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) at the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI).
Citing the example of increasing use of ChatGPT, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), and Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in the country, Amrit said, “We are moving in the right direction.”
He then dwelt on the lacuna of lack of data from private hospitals and the medical colleges on the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP). This, he said, needs to be addressed. “Also, the initiative of digital public infrastructure (DPI) will smoothen the inter-operability of different hospitals as it will be mandatory for them to share data with others. It is very important to have clean and robust data in order to empower our response to outbreaks of infectious diseases. A metropolitan surveillance unit is going to be established in Patna with the assistance of the central government,” he added.
Sanjay Kumar Singh, executive director, SHSB, reiterated the importance of participation of the private hospitals, which had a significant footfall, in sharing of data for proper surveillance of disease and saving precious lives. Currently, the data is only being furnished by government hospitals on the IHIP and consequently remains incomplete.
Dr Sujit Singh, adviser, NCDC, said Bihar was only the third Indian state whose private sector health institutions had been chosen to participate in the sharing of data on the IHIP.
Dr Ranjit Kumar, state surveillance officer, SHSB, said some 30 viruses are still at large in the environment and pose great danger.
Dr Dewang Jariwala and Dr Ujjwal Sinha of WHO along with Dr Neeraj Kumar and Dr Pranay Verma of NCDC also aired their views on this occasion. Dr Ragini Mishra, state epidemiologist, IDSP cell, anchored the session. A vote of thanks was proposed by Dr Ranjit Kumar, state surveillance officer, SHSB.