BENGALURU: It has come to light that four Karnataka districts --- Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Chikkaballapur and Ramanagara --- do not have a full-fledged District Surveillance Unit (DSU).
DSUs play a crucial role in every district carrying out surveillance for both communicable and non-communicable diseases, including active and passive surveillance, disease outbreak monitoring, keeping track of media alerts on outbreaks, and conducting house-to-house surveys.
During a pandemic, they play an even more essential role. However, in the aforementioned districts, malaria officers or TB officers are deputed as District Surveillance Officers (DSOs) and some don't have a central lab. Also, lab technicians, microbiologists, epidemiologists and other human resources are not employed.
"In BBMP limits, there is no separate DSU team. While an epidemiologist and data entry operators are there, lab technicians and microbiologists are not. To cater to a population of more than a crore, a lab and a full-fledged DSU will help," an official said.
In Ramanagara, an acting DSO has been deputed from another district as there is no permanent post created there. They do not have an epidemiologist, but have a lab technician and two microbiologists. A district official said that more hands will help them serve better during a pandemic.
In Chikkaballapur, a TB officer has been appointed as DSO. While the district hospital lab is used as there is no central lab, they have microbiologists, epidemiologists and other staff.
In Bengaluru Rural, a malaria officer has been deputed as DSO. While an epidemiologist is there, a microbiologist and lab technician are not there. As there is no central lab, samples are sent to Devanahalli General Hospital or Taluk Hospital.
A former Health Department official said that a DSU will help in conducting passive surveillance which refers to surveillance through institutions. Active surveillance refers to the surveillance done on field by health workers. In this, they visit 15-20 houses each day to check for communicable and non-communicable diseases and ante-natal and postnatal care. This is applicable to diseases like dengue, cholera, H1N1, HIV, Malaria, chikungunya, typhoid, tuberculosis, diabetes, hypertension, stroke and more. Covid-19 has also been added to the disease surveillance plan.
"Active surveillance for a disease like Covid-19 will include testing surrounding houses if a person turns positive, tracing symptomatic persons, sending samples to the lab on time and ensuring the report is also generated without delay, testing primary and secondary contacts, etc. This is not happening in these four districts now. For instance, there is no central lab in Bengaluru and samples are sent to NIV, NIMHANS, etc," a Health Department source said.
"The cost of paying salaries can be borne by the National Health Mission. Only one time investment of close to Rs 1 crore has to be spent per DSU. Recurring cost will include lab consumables, which can also be covered by NHM," the source added.
Health Commissioner Dr K V Thrilok Chandra was not available for a comment.