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Health Surveillance in India: Current and Future Prospects
Correspondence Address :
Dr. Sasithra,
Department of Community Medicine, Chettinad Hospital and Research Institute,
Chettinad Academy of Research and Education, Kelambakkam, Chengalpattu-
603103, Tamil Nadu, India.
E-mail: sasisadhablue@gmail.com
Surveillance is an information for action. India has created considerable improvement in control, prevention and eradication of certain communicable diseases. Few such diseases that have been effectively controlled are polio, smallpox, vector-borne illness, nipah, Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) and so on. These achievements are the outcome of an active surveillance system incorporated at community, facility, and health system level. Any of these progresses is impossible without a robust public health surveillance structure. Therefore, enhancing the public health surveillance system further will be helpful in managing upcoming pandemics at its earliest. Improvements in public health surveillance should be synchronised with the goals of Universal Health Coverage and its regulating standards of safe guarding universal health as a right besides privilege, ensuring equity, non-discrimination, guarding the affected individual’s rights and respect their choice and placing health in people’s hand. In alignment with the National Digital Health Mission, the new Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) aims to substitute traditional surveillance data-entry system with modern advances in digital health and technology. This platform also initiates various sector collaboration, including public and private healthcare organisations and civil societies. Recommendations to strengthen the surveillance system starts with enhancement of laboratory infrastructure, referral networks and health organisations at the block level with the aim of strengthening community-based surveillance and responding in a timely manner for upcoming outbreaks.
Integrated health information platform, Public health, Unique health information identifier
10.7860/JCDR/2021/50933.15650
Date of Submission: Jun 18, 2021
Date of Peer Review: Sep 15, 2021
Date of Acceptance: Sep 29, 2021
Date of Publishing: Nov 01, 2021
AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? Yes
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? NA
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. NA
PLAGIARISM CHECKING METHODS:
• Plagiarism X-checker: Jun 09, 2021
• Manual Googling: Sep 13, 2021
• iThenticate Software: Oct 26, 2021 (11%)
ETYMOLOGY: Author Origin
- Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science, thomsonreuters)
- Index Copernicus ICV 2017: 134.54
- Academic Search Complete Database
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- Embase
- EBSCOhost
- Google Scholar
- HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme
- Indian Science Abstracts (ISA)
- Journal seek Database
- Popline (reproductive health literature)
- www.omnimedicalsearch.com