New Delhi: With India facing several public health emergencies, the government is planning to set up 20 metro surveillance units (MSUs) across the country to act in real-time. These MSUs and personnel will be deputed in 20 cities and will act as rapid response units for disease outbreak management.
Currently, in the event of any outbreak, it is the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) that deploys a central team to do the surveillance, in the process losing time to contain the disease.
The new focus comes in the backdrop of metro cities having a high density of population, and at a higher risk of outbreaks of novel diseases as cities are domestic and international travel hubs.
These MSUs will not only generate and verify health alerts but also help in training frontline health workers to effectively respond to public health emergencies.“Wherever the outbreak happens, these MSUs will direct, reports, and do recording of samples so that scientists are able to predict the trend — whether is it likely to be an epidemic or outbreak — and we can take prior steps,” said an official aware of the matter.
“For this entire project, the state governments are supposed to provide the land or site and NCDC will be design its manpower. However, the work is in progress,” said the official adding that these units will have strong linkages with other municipal health departments.
Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson did not elicit any response.
Cities identified for such units include Bhubaneswar, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Lucknow.
