The Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has asked the Indian Council of Medical Research to procure the recently developed diagnostic kit to confirm the presence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in any of the cases that are likely to arise in future. It has also asked the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) to develop a proforma in consultation with ICMR, to be filled by the passengers disembarking in India from affected countries. This would enable the screening of passengers.
The decision was taken at a high level meeting chaired by Sushma Swaraj, minister of health and family welfare. As per the directives announced at the meeting, any person meeting the criteria of suspected/probable SARS would be reported to Director NICD and Director EMR. The proforma would be circulated by Ministry of Home Affairs (Immigration authorities to all concerned airlines. The diagnostic kit purchased by ICMR to confirm the presence of SARS virus, would be provided to National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune and National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi. The WHO would continuously provide updated information about the disease to DGHS. The Ministry of Home Affairs would issue an advisory on SARS to the Indian Embassy in affected countries through the Ministry of External Affairs, so that persons applying for Indian visa are suitably cautioned.
The meeting reviewed the situation relating to reports in different parts of the world. The meeting was attended by Mr. S.K. Naik, Secretary (Health), Dr. S.P. Agarwal, DG, DGHS, Dr. N.K. Ganguly, DG, ICMR, Dr. Shiv Lal, Director, NICD, Mr. S.K. Narula, Chairman, Airport Authority of India, Dr. R.K. Sharma, Medical Superintendent AIIMS, Shri R.K. Jain, Joint Secretary (Ports), Shri P. Srivastava, Joint Secretary (Foreigners) Ministry of Home Affairs, Dr. N. Zaidi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Dr. S. Chugh, Head of Department (Medicine), RML Hospital, Dr. A.S. Abdullah, Coordinator Communicable Diseases, WHO/SEARO and other senior officials representing Ministry of Health.
During the meeting, the concerned Departments apprised the Minister of the preparations that had been undertaken to prevent SARS cases occurring within the country. The issues discussed included preparedness to deal with the problem, infrastructure availability, monitoring mechanisms available to tackle the issue, exchange of information and facilitating information flow between key institutions involved in dealing with the problem.