AIR Spotlight: Health Research and Infrastructure in India

AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio Newsonair. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation.

This article is about the discussion on ‘Health Research and Infrastructure in India’.

Participants:

1. Dr Raman R. Gangakeshar, Former member of Indian Council of Health Research.
2. Ravi Kumar,  Correspondent AIR 

Detail: 

• The PM laid the foundation stone for the National Institute for One Health and inaugurated the Centre for Research, Management and Control of Haemoglobinopathies, in Nagpur.
• The National Institute for One Health in Nagpur will emphasise upon increasing preparedness and laboratory capabilities in order to  identify novel and unknown zoonotic agents. 
  • This dedicated institute will be equipped with the Biosafety Level laboratory. It will help investigate outbreaks of emerging zoonotic agents concerned with public health and develop better control strategies.
• This institution will expand the way for depper research into the unknown and deadly zoonotic disease. It will also pave the way for establishment of state of art technology in the field of research and development in this sector. 
• The task of this institution is to carry out research, surveillance, and state of art inquiry in the field of medical research especially zoonotic disease. 
• It is a multi-dimensional, multi-sectoral institute that works at different levels to provide health related studies and thus contribute towards the preventive healthcare system. 

Need of one health institute: 

• In today’s world human health cannot be seen in isolation due to increased interaction between humans and animals ,domestic and wild, and the influence of climate change.
• Nearly half of all infections that people get can be attributed to  animals. 
• There has been a sudden spike in zoonotic disease that the world has been facing in recent times. One Of the most deadly examples is COVID, which took away the lives of millions of people. 

What is one health concept: 

• ‘One Health’ is an integrated, unifying approach to balance and optimise the health of people, animals and the environment.
• It is particularly important to prevent, predict, detect, and respond to global health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
• One Health involves the public health, veterinary, public health and environmental sectors. 
• The One Health approach is particularly relevant for food and water safety, nutrition, the control of zoonoses (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as flu, rabies and Rift Valley fever), pollution management, and combating antimicrobial resistance (the emergence of microbes that are resistant to antibiotic therapy).

Source: the lancet

Importance of one health approach: 

• It will help the countries in devising their policies in a way that would help in reducing the impact of the zoonotic disease.  
• One health concept would pave a greater way for the development of a preventive healthcare system. 
• Understanding this concept would reduce the adverse impact that may likely arise under the influence of climate change.
• This institution would pave a way for reducing the impact of zoonotic disease through a properly designed preventive healthcare system.

Read previous AIR Spotlight articles in the link.

AIR Spotlight: Health Research and Infrastructure in India:- Download PDF Here