Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP)

• Recent data put out by the Union Health Ministry’s Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) has indicated that food poisoning is one of the commonest outbreaks reported in 2017. This is apart from acute diarrhoeal disease (ADD).
• The IDSP has interpreted that the incidence of ADD and food poisoning is high in places where food is cooked in bulk, such as canteens, hostels and wedding venues.
• Food poisoning, also called food-borne illness, is caused by eating contaminated food. Infectious organisms including bacteria, viruses and parasites or their toxins are the most common causes.

About IDSP:

• 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.
• 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.

Specifically, the projects aims:

• To establish a decentralized state based system of surveillance for communicable and non-communicable diseases, so that timely and effective public health actions can be initiated in response to health challenges in the country at the state and national level.
• To improve the efficiency of the existing surveillance activities of disease control programs and facilitate sharing of relevant information with the health administration, community and other stakeholders so as to detect disease trends over time and evaluate control strategies.

The project is assisting the Government of India and the states and territories to:

• Survey a limited number of health conditions and risk factors
• 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.

By: Vishal