BHUBANESWAR: Odisha is going to have a unit of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) soon. Since the surge in non-communicable and vector-borne diseases has been haunting the State, the Centre has decided to open a branch of NCDC which will help in diagnosis and subsequent treatment.
Additional Director of NCDC Dr SK Jain held a discussion with Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Dr Pramod Kumar Meherda on Monday and sought the help of State Government to establish the unit.
Meherda said the NCDC’s Odisha branch, for which nearly three acres of land are required, will be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crores. “We will extend all necessary support. Land for the project will be identified and handed over soon,” he said.
The NCDC branch will also strengthen the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) besides identifying and controlling the diseases.
Earlier, the State Government had sent a proposal to the Centre seeking a branch of NCDC. While it has eight out-station branches across the country, the decision has been taken to add 22 more units at a cost of over Rs 300 crores.
Headquartered at Delhi, the NCDC has its outstation branches at Alwar (Rajasthan), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Kozhikode (Kerala), Coonoor (Tamil Nadu), Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh), Patna (Bihar), Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh) and Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh).
Once established, the national institute will have around the clock disease monitoring cell to respond to inquiries related to disease outbreak along with a video-conferencing facility to interact with the network of disease surveillance centres in the State.
The branch will also be well equipped and staffed to carry out field studies, training activities and research.