Why in News?
Recently, the Union Health Minister virtually laid the foundation stone for National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) branches in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tripura, and Uttar Pradesh.
About National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC):
- It is an institute under the Indian Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
- The Director, an officer of the Public Health sub-cadre of Central Health Service, is the administrative and technical head of the Institute.
Read also:- ‘ONE HEALTH’ APPROACH
History:
- The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), formerly National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) had its origin as Central Malaria Bureau, established at Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh) in 1909 and following expansion was renamed in 1927 as the Malaria Survey of India.
- The organization was shifted to Delhi in 1938 and called as the Malaria Institute of India (MII).
- In view of the drastic reduction achieved in the incidence of malaria under National Malaria Eradication Programme (NMEP), Government of India decided to reorganize and expand the activities of the institute to cover other communicable diseases.
- Thus in 1963 the erstwhile MII was renamed as National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) to shoulder these additional responsibilities.
- In year 2009,NICD transforms into National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) with a larger mandate of controlling emerging and re-emerging diseases.
Function:
- It functions as the nodal agency in the country for disease surveillance facilitating the prevention and control of communicable diseases.
- In coordination with the State Governments, NCDC has the capacity and capability for disease surveillance, outbreak investigation, and rapid response to contain and combat outbreaks.
Read also:- Climatology
Services:
- The Institute provides referral diagnostic services to individuals, communities, medical colleges, research institutions and state health directorates.
Headquarters:
- The Institute has its headquarters in Delhi.
Branches:
- It has eight branches located at Alwar (Rajasthan), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Kozikode (Kerela), Coonoor (Tamil Nadu), Jagdalpur (Chattisgarh), Patna (Bihar), Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh) and Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh).
What are the Benefits of having multiple branches of NCDC?
- The regional branches of NCDC will play a pivotal part and will provide a boost to public health infrastructure with prompt surveillance, rapid detection and monitoring of diseases thereby enabling early interventions.
- The State branches will coordinate with NCDC (Delhi) with real-time sharing of data and information aided by cutting-edge technology.
- Further, the NCDC branches would also be crucial in ensuring the timely availability of updated guidelines.
Read also:- Administrative Relations between Centre and State
