Agartala, Sept 06: In a boost to the healthcare facilities, Tripura is all set to get a branch of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) soon.
In a virtual programme, Union Minister for Health Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday laid foundation for the proposed NCDC branches in Tripura among six states.
In Tripura, the NCDC branch would be set up on 1.41acres of land at Sepahipara in Mohanpur sub-division. The project cost is over Rs. 11.96 crore.
On behalf of Tripura government, Law minister Ratanlal Nath and health officials including secretary Dr. Debashis Basu took part in the virtual event.
Addressing the programme, the Union Health minister said, “Disease surveillance plays a crucial part in disease prevention, control and management. Towards this end the regional branches of NCDC will play a pivotal part. They will provide a boost to public health infrastructure with prompt surveillance, rapid detection and monitoring of diseases thereby enabling early interventions”.
“The Government under leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji is committed to strengthening the health infrastructure across the country. There has been a shift from “token” to “total” approach where States are our partners in the spirit of collaborative and cooperative federalism to ensure quality, affordable and accessible healthcare to all,” Dr. Mandaviya said.
He added that it is vision of the Prime Minister to strengthen health infrastructure across the country. The central government has under PM-ABHIM (Prime Minister- Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission) approved Rs. 64,000 crore for various health infrastructure in the states.
He also said, the present pandemic of COVID-19 has shown the importance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases which can not only cause localized outbreaks but can also lead to a pandemic.
The NCDC branches in the states and UTs would support the state governments in timely disease surveillance and monitoring. These would enable early warning leading to timely intervention based on evidence gathered from the field, he pointed out.
The state branches would coordinate with NCDC HQR at New Delhi with real time sharing of data and information aided by cutting edge technology. The NCDC branches would also be crucial in ensuring timely availability of updated guidelines so that accurate scientifically backed information can be disseminated easily.
Currently, NCDC has eight branches in states with focus on one or few diseases, these will be repurposed and new branches are being added with the mandate for integrated disease surveillance activities, dealing with Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR), multi-sectoral and entomological investigations etc.
Union Health Minister also inaugurated the NCDC Laboratory Block -1,Residential Complex and NRL of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme.
The NCDC Laboratory Block will house state-of-the-art testing and referral laboratories concerned with bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases of public health concern. This laboratory is equipped with 50 high-capacity labs which include 30 Bio-safety level3 labs, 5 RT-PCR labs and 15 other labs.
The laboratories will be designed to not only offer testing facilities, but also provide hands-on training, capacity building and quality assurance services to whole network of laboratories across the country. (with PIB inputs)
