NCDC upgrade to tackle bio-terrorism

The health ministry plans to develop National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) into an apex institute for communicable diseases on the lines of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, by March 2013.

It is believed that after the ambitious Rs382.41-crore upgrade, the institute will be in a better position to provide leadership in the field of public health, strengthen capabilities of states and union territories in disease outbreak investigation and response. It will also be better prepared to tackle bio-terrorism and respond to public health emergencies of international concern.

NCDC will have new infrastructure such as wet and dry, bio-safety level 2 and BSL-3 labs along with state-of-the-art equipment.
Established in 1909 as Central Bureau of Malaria at Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, the institute was shifted to Delhi in 2009 and renamed NCDC.

It is a centre of excellence for building capacity for surveillance of outbreak-prone communicable diseases and provides technical expertise in the field of disease prevention and control. However, it has not undergone an upgrade for decades and sometimes falls short of fulfilling its growing mandate to address emerging and reemerging diseases.