The Centre wrote to the States on June 9 that the long term vision is to fully integrate COVID-19 surveillance within the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). In this context, Karnataka’s Covid-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has recommended that the long term epidemiological trend of COVID-19 supported with genomic surveillance and sewage surveillance should be closely monitored now.
The Centre’s letter said that COVID-19 has now entered a new phase characterised by sustained incidence of mild cases with very low hospitalisation and mortality rates in the country. So, does this mean COVID is entering an endemic stage now? Experts that The Hindu spoke to said that this cannot be said as of now based on the current transmission dynamics.
What is IDSP?
So, what does integration of COVID-19 surveillance within the IDSP mean?
State Health Commissioner Randeep D. said that the integration proposed under the ambit of IDSP would mean that henceforth, COVID disease surveillance will be undertaken in a continuous structured manner, irrespective of whether there is a surge or not. “Once under the IDSP, COVID incidence and prevalence would be regularly monitored similar to what is being done in terms of other communicable diseases. Joint Director, Communicable Diseases would be the nodal officer in charge of review,” he said.
IDSP is one of the major National Health Programme. The key objective of this programme is to strengthen/maintain decentralised laboratory based IT enabled disease surveillance systems for epidemic prone diseases. This is to monitor disease trends and to detect and respond to outbreaks in the early rising phase through trained Rapid Response Team (RRTs), the Commissioner explained.
Endemic yet?
TAC member Giridhar R. Babu, who also heads Lifecourse Epidemiology at Indian Institute of Public Health in Bengaluru, said, “Eventually COVID-19 will also become endemic. But, whether that is happening now cannot be said based on the current transmission dynamics.”
Any disease becoming endemic means that it is constantly present in a defined geographical area or population. This is similar to malaria and cholera that continue to be there in some parts of the world but are not found in several other parts of the world and are not a concern there, he said.
“Adding COVID to the existing surveillance platform of IDSP will help track and monitor the disease at all times and not just when there is an uptick in cases. This is an ideal way of monitoring the disease instead of having a vertical reporting system,” he said.
TAC Chairman M.K. Sudarshan said that many people are not getting tested and there is a restriction on testing asymptomatic persons. “It is because of this that testing levels are low. In this context, it is important that there is regular and continuous monitoring on surges and emerging new variants through the IDSP,” he said.
