Asian Institute of Public Health to come up in Orissa
Update 2: Telegraph also reports on it.
Update: A report in Hindu has some more details. Following are some excerpts:
AIPH is starting with small programmes such as Certificate in Public Health Management. The institute would be located over a 50-acre land near Jatni, on the outskirt of the capital city. Promoters of the institute plan to invest Rs. 15 crores immediately to start the programme with the help of some guest faculties from the USA.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, David J. Ramsay, president of University of Maryland, said “We will build different centres of excellence under the umbrella of AIPH. I have allocated matching funds in our efforts to secure financial support for infrastructure building. Very soon, AIPH will bring US-based faculty and experts to Orissa for teach, training and conducting research.”
AIPH Secretary Pinaki Panigrahi claimed the institute would be the first of its kind as India had 209 medical colleges whereas there was no full-fledged public health school. But in USA there were 129 medical schools and 33 public health institutes, he added. “The institute will prepare workforce to help formulate and implement health programmes in the country,” Dr. Panigrahi said.
The new institute has roped in several Indian-based teaching faculties as well as US-based experts to take forward different specialized programmes in its campus.
Among others AIPH President N. K Ganguly, who was former director-general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), was present on the occasion.
Following is an excerpt from a report in Expressbuzz.com.
With disease burden not showing any signs of decline despite advancement in therapeutic sciences across the world, the focus of public health has shifted to prevention.
The future of a healthy society hinges on securing the populace from afflictions by way of inducing suitable changes in lifestyle and societal atmosphere and also, very importantly, increasing immunity through vaccination, said President of University of Maryland Baltimore, (UMB), USA, David J Ramsey today.
Ramsey told this paper that worldwide, intensive efforts are on to develop vaccines for diseases that have the greatest impact on the population and not on individuals. The UMB has already developed a vaccine for cholera, which is being successfully implemented in South American countries. Progress is being made in the efforts to formulate a vaccine for malaria, AIDS and several other prevalent diseases in the stateof- the-art facility at the University.
But the challenge lies in implementation of the interventions to check outbreaks. Public health is still not considered a different domain from medical or clinical streams in most parts of the world, particularly developing countries including India.‘‘
The realm of public health basically involves collating biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health sciences, health services administration, and social and behavioural sciences so that prevention and treatment initiatives and policies would be well-directed and most effective,’’ the head of the prestigious institute said.
And, in an initiative aimed at strengthening the public health sector in India as well as the sub-continental countries by producing skilled professionals to carry out operational research to develop sustainable health-care delivery models, the Asian Institute of Public Health (AIPH), a partner of UMB, is set to take shape here from Sunday.
The first of its kind institute in the country, with support of the Orissa Government, would offer courses on Public Health Management, Management development programmes on ‘Surveillance, Epidemic Preparedness and Response’, ‘Biostatistics and Research Methodologies’, ‘Biomedical Waste Management and Handling’, ‘Good clinical Practice of Clinical research’ and ‘Emerging issues in public health’. The target scholars would include medical officers, AYUSH doctors, personnel from health agencies, Government health administrators, social scientists, corporate sector managers dealing with health programmes, paramedics, sanitation workers, NGOs, etc. The courses have been designed and be certified by UMB, AIPH secretary Dr Pinaki Panigrahi said.
The above articles do not mention the Indian Institutes of Public Health being built in India, three of which mention that they are offering post-graduate diploma starting fromn the 2008-09 session. Following is an excerpt.
The Indian Institutes of Public Health at Delhi, Gandhinagar, and Hyderabad would be offering the following Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) Programs in the academic year 2008-09:
IIPH, Delhi: PGD in Health Economics and Policy IIPH, Gandhinagar: PGD in Public Health Management IIPH, Hyderabad: PGD in Biostatistics and Data Management
If done right the AIPH can surpass the IIPHs, mainly because a well known professor Dr. Pinaki Panigrahi is behind it and his university, The University of Maryland at Baltimore, is an active collaborator on this. The Orissa govt. may take advantage of the AIPH and push for an IIPH next to it. They have discussed with PHFI, but its plan (see here and here) in Orissa is not clear.
Also, note that in the PHFI/IIPH model companies, state and the center (through PHFI) fund the IIPHs. Orissa government should help AIPH in a similar manner: contribute a similar amount, ask companies to contribute and ask the center to contribute. To get an idea of the PPP nature and the amount used to fund IIPH, following is an excerpt from a report in Hindu.
Industry leaders came forward to pump in Rs. 30 crore to make Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), an arm of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), commence its first-ever postgraduate diploma course in biostatistics and data management from July this year.
The Union Government through PHFI had sanctioned Rs. 60 crore, while the State Government allotted 43 acres in Rajendranagar and sanctioned Rs. 30 crore for the IIPH. The new governing council assumed charge on Saturday. Addressing a press conference here, G.V. Krishna Reddy, chairman of the governing council, said he, along with G.V. Prasad of Dr. Reddy’s Labs, G. Mallikarjuna Rao of GMR Group, N. Prasad of Matrix Labs, B. Rama Raju of Satyam Group, and SriniRaju of iLabs, would together donate Rs. 30 crore.
6 comments November 2nd, 2008
