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The Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss has underlined the need for developing effective surveillance and reporting systems in order to deal with Avian Influenza. Presiding over the National Consultation Meeting on Influenza Preparedness organized by Directorate General of Health Services here today, Dr. Ramadoss sounded a word of caution and said that this disease has potential to cause a pandemic with very high morbidity and mortality. Preparation is not going to be possible without the collaboration and active participation of different institutions and organisations within the health sector as well as other related departments like Animal Husbandry, Science and Technology, Environment and Forest and the private sector. He said that today the world is a global village in the real sense with fast modes of transport and communication readily accessible. ‘No one is safe till everyone is safe’ is the guiding principle today, he added.
The Minister called for creating awareness not only general but specific awareness amongst the poultry and butcheries. In this context, he said our bordering states are most vulnerable and these have to be taken care of. Dr. Ramadoss said, the risk to human health remain so long as H5N1 continues to circulate in domestic poultries. It is of paramount importance that all the experience and knowledge available with us is collated and pooled to prepare strategies for any such eventualities, adding that preparedness on our part has to be effective and we should be able to put in place appropriate response mechanism in a timely manner.
Outlining several measures which can help minimize the global public health risk that could arise from large outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 Avian Influenza in birds, Dr. Ramadoss said, an immediate priority should be to halt further spread of epidemics in poultries populations and vaccinations of persons at high risk of exposure to infected poultry. These workers should receive anti-viral drugs as a prophylactic measure. He said that the Ministry of Health and Agriculture have decided to have an inter-sectoral coordination between the Departments of Health and Animal Husbandry for effective monitoring. The Minister concluded by saying that our country has successfully met many challenges in the recent past and our response during the SARS has been very effective and added that our preparations will mitigate the direct medical and economic effects of a pandemic by ensuring that adequate measures will be taken and implemented before the pandemic occurs.
The Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Smt. Panabaka Lakshmi in her address said that we need to be in a state of preparedness and alert to minimize health and socio-economic impact of a possible pandemic. Also, these preparations and disaster management will enhance our capabilities and we will be in a position to tackle outbreaks of other infectious disease threats. The Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Shri P.K. Hota said that this is an important sector which has to be handled multi-sectorily. He called upon all the agencies and colleagues in other departments to sit together and develop a mechanism which is fully geared to meet such eventualities. The Director General of Health Services, Dr. S.P. Aggarwal gave an overview of the Avian Influenza and the measures to deal with the situation.
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