Kerala panel proposes unified disease command centre to combat outbreaks

The Kerala government's high-power steering committee, tasked with updating the state's epidemic management plan, has recommended a coordinated, surveillance-driven approach to strengthen infectious disease prevention and control. The preliminary recommendations were submitted to Health Minister K. Muraleedharan on Monday.

The committee stressed that coordinated action across multiple departments is essential for effective epidemic prevention. It proposed convening a high-level inter-departmental meeting chaired by the Health Minister, involving Health, Education, Local Self-Government, Forest, Agriculture, Public Works, and Animal Husbandry departments, to coordinate disease prevention efforts.

With infectious diseases like dengue expected to intensify in the coming weeks, the committee recommended an intensive mosquito eradication, waste management, and sanitation campaign across the state for the next three months.

A key recommendation is the establishment of a Unified Public Health Command and Control Centre that would monitor hospital data and field-level disease surveillance simultaneously. This centre would integrate daily disease data from government and private hospitals, One Health data, and food safety and water quality surveillance onto a single dashboard, enabling early identification of waterborne, mosquito-borne, and zoonotic disease threats and rapid preventive decisions from local to ministerial levels.

The committee also suggested hotspot mapping of various infectious diseases to target preventive measures. Local water sources should be regularly tested for contamination by health workers and food safety officials, and field-level water testing kits should be supplied. Food outlets should undergo periodic checks.

To strengthen the disease surveillance system, the committee recommended coordinating the activities of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Project under the Health department, Prevention of Epidemic and Infectious Diseases (PEID) cells in medical colleges, and the Kerala Centre for Disease Control (KCDC). Effective steps should be taken to obtain disease data from the private sector and involve private sector clinicians in epidemic control activities.

Treatment guidelines for communicable diseases should be periodically updated and made available to all doctors and health workers in both government and private sectors across the state.

The committee also recommended modernising surveillance activities, improving data analysis through public health research institutions, appointing epidemiologists in every district, and exploring the use of generative AI to enhance disease surveillance efficacy. Real-time data on zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza and rabies should be incorporated into the State Health portal.

Additionally, the committee pointed to over 800 vacancies in the Health department that need to be filled to ensure stricter antibiotic dispensing, vaccination of vulnerable groups like the elderly against influenza, enhanced infection control measures in hospitals, and training for elected representatives of local self-government bodies to coordinate ward-level disease prevention and sanitation activities.