Govind Sharma
JAMMU, May 24: The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) which was launched by Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare in Jammu and Kashmir in 3rd phase in 2007 to detect early warning signals of impending outbreaks and help initiate an effective response in a timely manner, is being run on crutches in Jammu province.
According to the official sources, IDSP is a decentralized, State based surveillance programme whose objective is to strengthen/maintain decentralized laboratory based IT enabled disease surveillance system for epidemic prone disease trends and to detect and respond to outbreaks in early rising phase through trained Rapid Response Team (RRT).
The program is beneficial to control the spread of epidemic outbreak of Communicable Diseases in particular, due to constant surveillance & improved data reporting, which is collected on weekly basis from reporting units. The weekly data is analyzed by State and District level surveillance units for disease trends whenever there is rising trends of illness and this data is cautiously investigated by the RRT to diagnose the outbreaks.
The infrastructure of IDSP in J&K consisted of Surveillance units. These units have been established at State level and district level and each unit comprised three contractual posts viz Epidemiologist, Data Manager and Data Entry Operator, approved by the Government of India.
Sources said these surveillance units were established in all six old districts of Jammu Division viz; Doda, Jammu, Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri & Udhampur, besides Government Hospital Gandhi Nagar, Jammu and Govern-ment Medical College, Jammu. Later these units were also established in the newly created districts viz. Kishtwar, Reasi, Ramban and Samba.
“However, it is shameful that out of 10 districts only Kathua district unit has all the three posts filled while all other districts are lacking manpower. In surveillance units of Jammu, the post of Epidemiologist is vacant while district Samba is being run by Data Entry Operator only. Similar is the condition of Reasi, Ramban, Rajouri and Kishtwar districts, which are being run by a single person i.e. Data Entry Operator”, sources disclosed.
They said while in Ramban, Reasi and Kishtwar districts, posts of Data Manager and Epidemiologist have not been sanctioned yet, in Rajouri unit the post of Data Manager is sanctioned but lying vacant and the post of Epidemiologist is still not sanctioned.
In surveillance units of Udhampur and Poonch districts, the post of Epidemiologist has not been sanctioned and in Doda district, the post of Data Manager is yet to be sanctioned by the Government of India. The only district where all the three posts have been filled is Kathua district.
Not only this, many far flung areas of Rajouri and Poonch districts, there is no internet connectivity in the health centers due to which the reporting units there are not able to share their data on weekly basis with District and State level surveillance units.
Sources said due to shortage of manpower and lack of internet connectivity in health centres of far flung areas, IDS programme has been affected badly as from many far flung areas, either data is not being reported completely or it is being reported very late.
Moreover, in the year 2016-17, the Government had sanctioned funds for strengthening the existing labs of district hospitals in five districts of Jammu region viz Kathua, Jammu, Doda, Udhampur and Rajouri but even after passing of almost two years, these labs lacked requisite equipments and machinery as J&K Medical Supplies Corporation failed to procure many important equipments needed to strengthen these labs.
When contacted, Dr JP Singh, Epidemiologist and State Surveillance Officer, admitted that there is shortage of manpower in Surveillance units as for many districts like Samba, Ramban, Reasi Kishtwar and Doda, the Government of India has not sanctioned posts of Data Manager. Similarly, the posts of Epidemiologist have not been sanctioned yet for Ramban, Reasi, Udhampur, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Poonch districts.
He said that the matter has been taken up many times in the past with Government of India as shortage of manpower definitely affects the surveillance programme to some extent. He said some posts like State Epidemiologist, Epidemiologist of Samba unit and Data Manager of Rajouri unit have fallen vacant due to retirement and the process of filling the same is underway.
Dr Singh also admitted that the lack of internet connectivity in far flung areas of Poonch, Rajouri and Kishtwar districts is also affecting timely reporting of data by various health centres. He said that this issue has also been taken up with Government of India and they have assured of resolving the same.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel