Infectious Diseases
Infectious diseases disproportionately impact resource-constrained settings and are linked to a complex range of overlapping health factors. These include availability of safe drinking water and basic sanitation, housing conditions, climate change, gender inequity, sociocultural factors, and poverty, among others.
Over the last 40 years infectious diseases have been known to repeatedly reshape the course of civilization, resulting in significant human suffering and death along with substantial economic costs. There has been a 4-fold increase in the number of emerging pathogens, such as extensively drug- resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), pandemic H1N1, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Nipah virus, Zika virus, MultiDrug Resistant Organisms (MDROs), Ebola virus, as well as healthcare-associated infections, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of global infectious disease threats, and the need of continuous research in this area to understand, quantify, and forecast the disease risk that pathogens pose to humanity. Further research in this area is also pertinent to aid the development of disease prevention and treatment modalities.
Public health threats and infectious diseases respect neither boundaries nor barriers, and 70% of the world is underprepared to prevent, detect, and respond to them quickly and effectively. In the current era, infection can possibly spread around the world in 24 to 48 hours due to increasingly mobile and connected populations. This is further aggravated by rapid urbanization; human behavior; changing nature of pathogen transmission between human and animal populations; and rapid transportation networks.
Keeping in view the enormous range and burden of infectious diseases in the sub-continent, the Government of India has initiated several vertical programs for centrally managing these diseases and outbreaks. To sustain their success there is a major need to identify and address the existing gaps and revise the health policy accordingly.
Programs launched and funded under Infectious Diseases
There are 4 programs launched.
Immunization Data System – Innovating for Action
The fourth thematic call was announced on 15th November 2017 on ‘Improving Immunization Data Systems
Antimicrobial Resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become a major healthcare threat in recent times due to excessive use.
HPV-Clinical Trial
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is responsible for >95% of cervical cancers worldwide.
Neglected Tropical Diseases
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