Have you ever wondered how a country or State collates data about a disease outbreak? Or how a nation calculates the number of persons who are infected or affected by a disease ? Or how an outbreak is prevented?
A silent, diligent army of men and women works daily to collect information about diseases in the community. The army, embedded in the public health division of the health department, is a group of epidemiologists who gather data that helps to develop programmes and drive policy decisions.
Earlier this month Sowmya Swaminathan, former chief scientist at World Health Organisation, expressed her happiness at meeting with graduating scholars at the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR). She termed them the human resource for public health, the cadre that is “well trained in epidemiology, surveillance, outbreak investigation, data analysis”.
