Overall Objective :
- The Government of India has initiated a decentralized, state based Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) in the country in response to a long felt need expressed by various expert committees.
- The project is to detect early warning signals of impending outbreaks and help initiate an effective response in a timely manner.
- It also provides essential data to monitor progress of on going disease control programs and help allocate health resources more optimally.
Projects aims :
- The project development objective is to improve the information available to the government health services and private health care providers on a set of high-priority diseases and risk factors, with a view to improving the on-the-ground responses to such diseases and risk factors.
The project is assisting the Government of India and the states and territories to -
- Survey a limited number of health conditions and risk factor
- Strengthen data quality, analysis and links to action
- Improve laboratory support
- Train stakeholders in disease surveillance and action
- Coordinate and decentralize surveillance activities
- Integrated disease surveillance at the state and district levels, and involve communities and other stakeholders, particularly the private sector.
- In the financial year 2005-06 District & State Surveillance units had been set up so that the program is able to respond in a timely manner to surveillance challenges in the state including emerging epidemics.
- It would integrate surveillance activities in the Country under various programs and use existing infrastructure for its function.
Present Scenario :
- The Programme was commenced in the State with 04 District Surveillance Units(DSU) under control of State Surveillance Unit(SSU) and subsequently the number of District Unit have been increased to 08 nos w.e.f. financial year 2011-12 . At present in every week, 1051 Sub-Centres are reporting in ‘S’ format ,155 health facilities(PHCs/CHCs/Government/Private) are reporting in ‘P’ format and 155 health facilities(Government/Private) are reporting in ‘L’ format in real time platform in IHIP portal.
- The Laboratory of District Hospital of Unakoti District and Laboratory of District Hospital of Gomati District has been identified as District Public Health Laboratory (DPHL) under IDSP.
- During Financial Year 2012-13 Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) has been identified as State Referral Laboratory and for this a MoU has been signed between AGMC and IDSP.
- The above 3(three) Laboratories have been reporting in “L” form regularly.
IHIP Implementation under IDSP :
- The IHIP Platform was launched in the State under IDSP from 1st April, 2021 and completely migrated from Weekly IDSP Portal to real time portal of IHIP from 1st October, 2021.
About IHIP :
- IHIP is an information platform that integrates data from various “registries” to provide real-time information on health surveillance from all across India for decision-makers to take action.
- All data contained in IHIP has the public health surveillance attributes: Person, Place, Time and all data has geocoded for geographic reference.
- The design and development of this platform found are attributed to the strengthening of India’s Public Health Surveillance System.
Why IHIP needed ?
- To provide a single operating picture of public health surveillance for decision-makers and to monitor emerging public health threats, disasters and mass events.
- IHIP provides the Union health ministry, State health ministries, local governments, municipalities real-time information on health surveillance from anywhere on any electronic device.
Weekly Reporting status of S, P and L Form in IHIP portal during 2022 :
| Form Type | No. of Reporting Units | Average No. of Reporting Units Reported | Percentage of Average Weekly Reporting during 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| S Form | 1051 | 934 | 89% |
| P Form | 155 | 147 | 95% |
| L Form | 155 | 142 | 92% |
Activities under IDSP :
- Daily surveillance of COVID-19 situation.
- Monitoring of reporting status and quality of reporting in IHIP portal.
- Regular surveillance of communicable diseases.
- Media scanning related to communicable diseases.
- Technical support to SRL and DPHLs laboratories under IDSP.
- Regular entomological survey in outbreak prone areas.
Impact on Health :
- All outbreaks cannot be predicted or prevented. However, precautionary measures can be taken within the existing health infrastructure and service delivery to reduce risks of outbreaks and to minimize the scale of the outbreak, if it occurs. The effectiveness with which national programmes are implemented and monitored, the alertness for identification of early warning signals and the capacity for initiating recommended specific interventions in a timely manner are important to achieve the above objectives.
- The course of an epidemic is dependent on how early the outbreak is identified and how effectively specific control measures are applied. The epidemiological impact of the outbreak control measures can be expected to be significant only if these measures are applied in time. Scarce resources are often wasted in undertaking such measures after the outbreak has already peaked and the outcome of such measures in limiting the spread of the outbreak and in reducing the number of cases and deaths is negligible.
- When outbreaks occur or when the risk of such outbreaks is high, the co-operation of other government departments, non-governmental agencies and the community often becomes necessary. Such help will be more forthcoming if mechanisms for interactions have been developed before the onset of an outbreak.
