Members of the public can now voluntarily report occurrences of an infectious disease such as fever, cough, cold, diarrhoea, dysentery, chicken pox, jaundice and rabid dog bites in their community, on the website of the Integrated Health Information Platform-Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP): https://ihip.mohfw.gov.in/cbs/#!/.
This portal has been created to strengthen IDSP through community participation, a note on the website says. The Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, in a press release, said that members of the public can come forward and provide information on the occurrence of these illnesses by providing details, including their name, phone number, age, occupation, village, district, State, date of occurrence, place and details of the communicable disease. Through this, the directorate can quickly take up field-level measures and prevent the spread of diseases. The details of the reporting individual will remain confidential.
Director of Public Health T. S. Selvavinayagam, while requesting the public to take part in the initiative, said this was a very simple tool, with a drop-down menu, that would facilitate people to notify the outbreak of a disease. This will enable the government to take immediate remedial action, he said.
“Though there may be an initial rise in cases because of this intervention, we can contain transmission as well as reduce morbidity and mortality over a period of time in the State, through this intervention,” he said.
The website of IHIP and IDSP that was recently revamped, has three forms on which details of communicable diseases collected through health inspectors, village health nurses, government and private hospitals are uploaded, and the respective district health officials are immediately informed. Prevention measures are taken through district-level and block-level rapid response teams.
