Insect experts in every district soon to prevent dengue, chikungunya outbreaks
As per the revised government policy, each district of the country should have at least one trained entomologist to successfully drive the vector control initiatives
In view of rising vector borne disease outbreaks including dengue and Chikungunya outbreaks in many parts of the country over the years, the health ministry is in the process of creating adequate number of well-trained entomologists— insect experts— to help states in implementing effective vector control measures.
As per the revised government policy, each district of the country should have at least one trained entomologist to successfully drive the vector control initiatives under the public health system even though there is enormous demand and supply gap as there are at least 700 districts in the country but not more than 50 working entomologists.
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“There is a huge dearth of trained entomologists in the country; and with rising vector borne diseases, there is a need to expand the programme to increase seats so that we are able to produce competent workforce that’s technically sound and is able to efficiently drive the vector control programmes especially at the high burden areas,” said Dr S Sabesan, adjunct professor, Indian Council of Medical Research-Vector Control Research Centre (VCRC) that is driving the training programme.
The Centre in Puducherry, which is the only institute to offer a master’s degree in public health entomology, has expanded the course to four other research institutes under ICMR that would take the total number of seats from this academic session in August to 68, from the current 20 seats.
“Twenty seats will be in the main VCRC campus and there is a campus in Patna that will have 20 seats, the Dibrugarh institute will have eight seats and the centres in Gorakhpur and Jabalpur will have 10 seats each. The manpower that most civic agencies recruit for vector control measures does not really have an entomologist on board whereas it absolutely necessary to have at least one trained person to be able to better assess the situation on ground such as receptivity, breeding environment, carriers etc that may be suitable for increased disease transmission. The measures will only be a success if a well-trained person is driving them,” said Ashwani Kumar, director, VCRC.
The need for public health entomology is the need of the hour to successfully tackle emerging and re-emerging vector borne diseases not just at the regional level but even at the global level. The idea behind the move is also to strengthen the capacity of public health entomologists towards the World Health Organisation’s global vector control response.
Apart from ICMR-VCRC, the other institutes where the course will be offered are Regional Medical Research Centre, Dibrugarh, Assam; Regional Medical Research Institute, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh; National Institute of Research in Tribal Heath, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh; and Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Science, Patna, Bihar.
The course is affiliated to the University of Pondicherry.
Interestingly, to attract talent, the administration is offering a stipend of ₹20,000 for each selected candidate.
“The selection will be through an all-India written test; and we plan to make use of our senior consultants in teaching. As per the plan, the senior consultants will take lectures virtually,” said Ashwani Kumar, director, ICMR-VCRC.
