Disease surveillance has long been recognized as an important tool for measuring the disease burden, studying morbidity and mortality trends and early detection of outbreaks for instituting effective control measures in a timely fashion. Prior to 2005, there was no comprehensive surveillance program for India. Though the health care infrastructure in India has grown immensely over recent years, the disease surveillance system still requires continued technical assistance and support to be able to adequately respond to frequent disease outbreaks.

USAID/India is supporting the WHO-India to assist the GOI efforts in strengthening disease surveillance in India. The overall focus of the program is to facilitate implementation of the Government of India’s nation-wide disease surveillance program in three phases.

Surveillance is conducted for communicable and non-communicable diseases including regular surveillance of malaria, acute diarrheal disease, cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, measles, polio, road traffic accidents, plague, yellow fever, meningo-encephalitis, hemorrhagic fever and other undiagnosed conditions. Sentinel surveillance is undertaken for sexually transmitted diseases (HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C); water quality, outdoor air quality, regular periodic surveys for Non-communicable Diseases.

In the first two phases 13 major states and 11 smaller states and Union Territories have been covered. The IDSP will link district reporting to state governments and thus enhance disease control and response. The project involved intensive training at all levels during the first phase. Second and third phase activities involve piloting of the project in urban and rural districts and state-wide implementation.

The project, in partnership with the National Institute of Communicable Disease, Indian Council of Medical Research, and state and city governments:

• facilitates coordination and collaboration among development partners and the national integrated disease surveillance project for effective support to the program;
• strengthens technical and program management capacities of the Central Surveillance Unit (at NICD) and its partners at the state level; and
• strengthens the capacities of health departments of municipal corporations of two metropolitan cities for the development and implementation of integrated disease surveillance involving the public and private sectors.