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| Communicable Diseases > Background |
| Communicable Diseases |
India is going through a period of transition, both epidemiological and demographic transition. While the economic development in India has been gaining momentum over the last decade, our health system is at crossroads today. Infectious diseases are still persisting as major health problems in spite of having national programmes for the control of most of these diseases for almost half a century now. The National Anti-Malaria as well as the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme have failed to achieve their objectives. India bears 21 percent of the global burden of incident TB cases and has the highest estimated incidence of Multi Drug Resistant-TB cases (MDR-TB) (131,000 out of global incidence of about 500,000 in 2007). India alone contributes 76% of the total 2.5 million cases in Southeast Asia. Even though Government initiatives in public health have recorded some noteworthy successes over time (eradicating small pox and guinea worm, substantial decline in the number of Leprosy, Polio and Malaria cases, etc (NHP, 2002)), our achievements in health outcomes are only moderate by International standards; India ranked 118 among 191 WHO member countries on overall health performance (WHO, 2000).
VHAI working with the primary goal of ‘making health a reality for people of India’ is having one of the largest networks of voluntary organizations in the country. VHAI has been sincerely initiating, supporting and implementing programs at the grassroots, building up professional and managerial capacities of state VHAs and their member organizations and supporting and coordinating national programs and campaigns. With a highly qualified staff comprising of medical doctors, demographers and public health experts the organization has been implementing and coordinating several national programs and campaigns since its inception in 1970. There are separate units for communicable and non-communicable diseases under the overall guidance of the Chief Executive.
With a committed staff the organization has been able to successfully achieve the desired outcomes in various national and state level projects aimed at the prevention and treatment of communicable diseases.
The division is currently implementing four major projects across the country aimed at a better provision of prevention and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, kala azar and HIV/AIDS.
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| The division comprises of the following members |
Mr Alok Mukhopadhyay – Chief Executive, VHAI
Dr Pramesh Bhatnagar – Director, Communicable Diseases Division
Dr L.M. Nath – Sr. Consultant
Dr Anjali Gupta – Sr. Programme Officer
Mr U.N. Vajpayee - Programme Officer
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