Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

National workshop on chikungunya

Thiruvananthapuram: The State Department of Health and the National Rural Health Mission are jointly organising a national workshop on ‘Emerging fevers, with focus on Chikungunya’ on December 28 at Hotel Abad Plaza in Kochi.

The workshop, which is the first ever national workshop on the topic to be organised by any State Health Department, is intended to chalk out an action plan for the prevention, management and follow-up action of infectious diseases like dengue and chikungunya in future.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Wednesday, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy said experts from various States, researchers and scientists from National Virology Institute and the National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme would come together at the workshop and share their current knowledge and expertise on tackling infectious diseases effectively.

All the research done so far on chikungunya epidemics that had occurred in various States in the past two years would be presented at the workshop. The organisers received about 30 research papers, which would also be discussed.

Senior Health Department officials from all chikungunya-affected States – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, Gujarat – would take part in the workshop.

Even though the Union Health Ministry had issued common guidelines for tackling infectious diseases, it had asked every State to come up with its own guidelines and strategies, with a focus on regional differences like geographic and climatic factors, which have a bearing on the control and prevention of most vector-borne infectious diseases.

Ms. Sreemathy said that the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) in the capital was equipped to handle any modern serological or virological diagnostic facilities currently available in the country.

The government was planning to open serum sample collection centres in all the five Medical Colleges in the State. Any blood samples of patients suffering from unusual or serious illnesses would be stored here and sent to the RGCB for analysis so that there would be no delay in diagnosis.

This would mean that the State would no longer need to send serum samples to diagnostic facilities at Pune or Delhi and then wait for the analysis, before launching disease management strategies.

The first of the serum sample collection centre would be opened at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital next month, Ms. Sreemathy said. She also announced that the government was taking steps to upgrade and strengthen the Public Health Laboratory to meet any requirement for diagnostic emergencies during epidemics.

Health Secretary Vishwas Mehta, who took part in the press conference, said the State was constantly monitoring fever cases and that even though chikungunya was in wane, this was the right time to launch pre-epidemic preparedness activities.

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