Govt. prioritizes International Health Regulations

International Health Regulations (IHR) is working upon highlighting the roles played by various sectors that focuses on building capacities at state level, particularly for hospital preparedness, infection control and surge capacity.

Signaling strong commitment to IHR, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the WHO Country Office organized a national consultation on strengthening intersectoral coordination for IHR (2005) and Points of Entry in Goa.

Anshu Prakash, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health, in his address emphasized that pathogens do not recognize political boundaries and hence move across countries.

"IHR are an instrument for the world to have a robust protocol for prevention, reporting, information sharing and preparedness. India is committed to becoming IHR compliant in 2016. The Goa meeting is an important step toward this goal," he added.

The government has prioritized the implementation of IHR as it moves towards full compliance by 2016. It is investing in building and sustaining core capacities under IHR (2005), particularly in view of emerging global threats such as Ebola and MERS-CoV.

Sectors represented in the meeting were human health, animal health, food safety, points of entry (ports, airports and ground crossings), atomic energy, shipping, airport authority, disaster management and response, as well as the Armed Forces-Health Division.

Several technical and research agencies such as the National Centre for Disease Control, National Institute of Virology, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Public Health Foundation of India, National institute of health and family welfare amongst others also participated in the meeting.