Cancer institutes in India emphasized for massive awareness on the disease

A Parliamentary committee on health and family welfare on Tuesday heard the views of stakeholders on the subject of "affordability of cancer treatment." On Monday, the Parliamentary committee took the view of Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on the same issue.

New Delhi: A day after a Parliamentary committee suggested to the Centre to waive GST on cancer drugs, institutes dealing with cancer issue on Tuesday highlighted that a massive awareness campaign is necessary to fight against the disease in India.

A Parliamentary committee on health and family welfare on Tuesday heard the views of stakeholders on the subject of "affordability of cancer treatment." On Monday, the Parliamentary committee took the view of Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on the same issue.

During Tuesday's meeting held at Vigyan Bhawan annexure, major stakeholders like the National Cancer Institute, All India Institute of Medical Science (Jhajjar), Dr B Barooah Cancer Institute (Guwahati), Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (Kolkata), National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (Gautam Budh Nagar) were present. Representatives from these organisations also echoed making cancer a "notifiable disease."

Meanwhile, the Centre called upon States reporting a surge in Covid cases to step up vigil and make continuous and proactive focus on sentinel surveillance for early detection and reporting of cases. During a review meeting on Covid status in 14 States, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan highlighted the low level of Covid testing across the States and also the drop in RT-PCR share.

States were advised to focus on strategic testing of patients coming with fever, SARI as well as ILI patients. States were also reminded to undertake the whole genome sequencing through the mapped labs of INSACOG network as per the revised surveillance strategy of the Union Health Ministry.

Dr VK Paul, chairman of India's Covid-19 task force advised the States to be watchful of the emerging pandemic situation. "Routine surveillance constitutes the steel frame of our Covid response and management strategy and needs continuous attention," Dr Paul said.

Aware of the fact that uptake in second and precaution doses in many states reporting the present surge was low, the officials have advised the States to rapidly accelerate the vaccination coverage, especially to those above 60 years, and the second dose among 12-17 population group.