The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “Technology essential for health solutions”

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Saturday, Jul 04, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“Technology essential for health solutions”

Special Correspondent

Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

S.Elango, Director of Public Health (left), V.M.Katoch, Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General, ICMR (second from left) interacting with students during the course commencement programme at the National Institute of Epidemiology- ICMR School of Public Health on Friday. —

CHENNAI: Solutions to public health issues should be inclusive of technological advances, comprise new ideas, and provide for social and local concerns, V.M. Katoch, Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General, ICMR, said on Friday.

Speaking at the inauguration of the training programme for the two Masters courses in Public Health and Applied Epidemiology on the premises of the National Institute of Epidemiology - ICMR School of Public Health, Dr. Katoch said it was essential to use technology to arrive at indigenous solutions but the challenge would be taking it to the field and having them work at that level. Stressing the translational research, he was also keen on promoting a permanent, sustained network of institutions and laboratories of the State and Centre working together to arrive at protocols and solutions through a process of exchange of ideas.

S. Elango, Director of Public Health, said both courses were essential for practitioners of public health. Foreseeing a bright future for the students who successfully complete the course, he said that there were a lot of areas of collaboration between the State government and the ICMR institutes where they will be of valuable assistance.The M.AE and M.P.H. courses are offered as off-campus courses by Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences, Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Both courses are recognised by the Medical Council of India. The M.AE course is an initiative from the ICMR and ICMR Partnership for Schools of Public Health in response to the need for qualitative and quantitative change in the practice of public health in India, according to M.V. Murhekar, co-ordinator for the programmes.

NIE officer-in-charge V. Kumaraswami spoke on the institute’s activities. The former director, M.D. Gupte, who initiated the M.AE programme in 2001, said the course had become extremely popular. He spoke about the initial stages of setting up the course. K. Ramachandran, former head, Department of Biostatistics, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, wished the students luck.

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