Pune's Naidu Hospital to get disease surveillance unit

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)-run Naidu Hospital for Infectious Diseases will soon get a disease surveillance centre, which will be linked to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The hospital was the first to handle the outbreak of influenza A (H1N1), better known as “swine flu” that originated in Mexico in 2009.

Dr RR Pardeshi, chief medical officer of PMC, told DNA, “The centre will come up on the hospital’s premises later this year. A lot of things are in the pipeline for the hospital, which is currently under renovation. Security of the hospital was one of the main concerns, so we are constructing a wall around the hospital to prevent entry of people from the nearby slums.”

The centre will help in collating and analysing data collected from private and government hospitals of the city. “We will link the surveillance centre to the WHO where all outbreaks and epidemics will be analysed,” he said.

The information collected will be disseminated to the state health officials to keep them abreast of the latest happenings in the city, he added.

The hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr D Barathe, told DNA that the centre was supposed to come up in 2009 itself, but the project was delayed as every one was busy handling swine flu cases.

A meeting to decide on allocation of funds for the centre will be held next week, Barathe said.