Communicable diseases a major health challenge: Minister
December 21st, 2011 - 5:25 pm ICT by IANSNew Delhi, Dec 21 (IANS) Calling communicable diseases a “major public health challenge”, union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Wednesday said various socio-economic and environmental reasons underlie the growing burden of communicable diseases.
“Communicable diseases pose a major public health challenge for India. The country is vulnerable to emerging and re-emerging diseases because of the existing environmental, socio-economic and demographic situation,” Azad said speaking at a meeting of the health ministry’s consultative committee of parliament
The minister said that while “note-worthy” success had been registered during the 11th Five Year Plan, the 12th Plan aims to address several public health challenges to control communicable diseases.
“The 12th Five Year Plan aims to address several public health challenges, such as ensuring primary health care to all including the urban slum population; strengthening of health care infrastructure; increasing public health workforce; strengthening disease surveillance and response systems; formulation and enforcement of appropriate public health laws and increasing public health allocation and spending,” said Azad.
Several members expressed serious concerns over the increase in Japanese encephalitis cases.
According to ministry figures, 5,149 acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) cases and 677 deaths were reported across India in 2010. Of these, there were 565 cases and 110 deaths due to Japanese encephalitis in 11 states.
The members suggested preventive programmes and a coordinated approach to tackle communicable diseases. Awareness campaigns on Doordarshan and All India Radio were also suggested along with allocation of funds for local health ‘melas’.
As per health ministry figures, the prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) is about 266 cases per lakh people and 23 persons die because of TB.
About 1.5 million cases of malaria with 30,000 deaths annually are reported. About 40 million persons infected with filaria, one-third of global cases, live in India and about 129 million are at risk of ‘kala-azar’ (leishmaniasis) in 52 endemic districts mostly in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Figures also show nearly 1,26,800 new cases of leprosy were reported in 2010 which is nearly half of global numbers, and more than 300 million episodes of acute diarrhoea occur every year in India in children below 5 years of age.
The minister said inter-sectoral coordination was important for controlling spread of communicable diseases.
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- 19 children dead in Bihar, encephalitis suspected - Sep 12, 2011
- Encephalitis kills 3 kids in Bihar, toll at 92 - Dec 08, 2011
- Prevention of non-communicable diseases priority: Azad - Mar 16, 2011
- Bihar: Suspected encephalitis kills six more - Sep 14, 2011
- Suspected brain disease kills nine kids in Bihar - Sep 06, 2011
- 'Time to scale up work on TB control' - Jan 24, 2012
- Electronic Nose can sniff tuberculosis - Nov 06, 2011
- Encephalitis kills 8 more kids in Bihar - Oct 13, 2011
- Need to tackle monumental challenge of non-communicable diseases: Azad - Nov 17, 2011
- Japanese Encephalitis: Azad visits Gorakhpur - Oct 20, 2011
- Japanese Encephalitis kills 505 - Dec 01, 2009
- Encephalitis claims 55 lives in Bihar - Aug 16, 2011
- TB causing half million annual deaths in South-East Asia: WHO - Mar 22, 2012
- Two more kids die of encephalitis in Bihar, toll 85 - Nov 17, 2011
Tags: acute encephalitis, all india radio, awareness campaigns, cases of malaria, communicable diseases, demographic situation, disease surveillance, doordarshan, emerging diseases, encephalitis cases, environmental reasons, ghulam nabi azad, health care infrastructure, health ministry, japanese encephalitis, primary health care, public health challenge, public health laws, public health workforce, tuberculosis tb