The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : State accused of being complacent on health front

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 12, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

State accused of being complacent on health front

Staff Reporter

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala does not have a clear public health policy and is not functionally equipped to manage endemic or emerging infectious diseases. It has been too complacent on the health front because of its fairly good indicators, while other States have moved ahead with innovative public health measures, public health experts have said.

Delivering a lecture at the national conference on “Emerging issues in public health” here on Friday, T. Jacob John, former Professor of Virology, Christian Medical College, Vellore, said that it was time public health experts in Kerala called the bluff about the State’s health system and exposed its vulnerabilities — ineffective disease surveillance system, inadequacy of diagnostic services and a total lack of policy or professionalism when it came to responding to public health crises. The three-day conference is being organised by the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, the public health studies wing of Sree Chitra Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology. Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy inaugurated the conference on Thursday.

Dr. John said the State had had several localised outbreaks and State-wide epidemics in the last decade, such as the cholera outbreak in Alappuzha in 1995-96, malaria outbreak in Kasaragod, the Japanese encephalitis outbreak in Alappuzha and Kottayam and the dengue epidemic in 2003. In December 2004, it had the country’s first and largest Hepatitis A outbreak in Kottayam, which was a totally preventable episode.

In 2006, Kerala was the last State in the country to be affected by chikungunya. Yet, when the epidemic occurred, the State was totally unprepared to handle the situation.

Dr. John said there was no lack of resources — the Union Health Ministry allotted Rs. 40 million to Kerala to combat fever, apart from the funds that the State government poured in.

Diagnostic facilities were crucial to an effective disease surveillance system and the State was yet to have a good laboratory within the public health system. Though the State government had revived the Virology Institute project, setting up a full-fledged lab and getting it running would take time.

At a panel discussion on emerging infectious diseases, public health professionals pointed out that the State’s health system failed to make the right responses during epidemics because there was no clear public health plan or a person in charge to ensure that the system was running.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala