Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC) on Wednesday conducted ‘Saksham’ workshop, an on-ground training for healthcare workers from Daund and Shirur tehsil to improve disease surveillance of vector-borne diseases, officials said.
This was the last day of the workshop series and PKC has trained more than 450 field workers from 11 tehsils like—Haveli, Mawal, Mulshi, Bhor, Velha, Indapur, Baramati, Ambegaon, Junnar, Khed and Purandar.
The workshop sessions were held by experts affiliated with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology (NIV), state entomologist, Dr Mahendra Jagtap, affiliated with the National Centre for Vector Borne Disease Control (NCVBDC) and Dr Suryakant Devkar, assistant health officer of Pune Municipal Corporation.
Maharashtra has a considerable shortage of field health workers, particularly multipurpose healthcare workers. They are responsible for the management of communicable diseases such as malaria, dengue, tuberculosis, leprosy, and other vector-borne diseases at the grassroots level.
Dr Suresh Dhekale, district malaria officer, informed, “The day-to-day activities of a multipurpose healthcare worker vary from house visits, disease identification, collection of blood samples, disbursing the medicines, surveillance of the breeding sites, supervising of vector control measures (e.g., fogging),” he said.
Priyanki Shah, senior project manager, PKC, said, “The field workers were informed about the significance of their data collection, i.e. its incorporation into disease models that look at both climate and disease parameters, enabling a better understanding of the prevalence of dengue.”
{{/usCountry}}Priyanki Shah, senior project manager, PKC, said, “The field workers were informed about the significance of their data collection, i.e. its incorporation into disease models that look at both climate and disease parameters, enabling a better understanding of the prevalence of dengue.”
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