"States must rehearse rapid response plans to tackle outbreaks like Nipah, Monkeypox, TB": says scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan

Former Chief Scientist of WHO, Dr Soumya Swaminathan has pointed out that state governments should rehearse and to prepare to put in place systems to tackle disease outbreaks such as Nipaha, Monkepox and even Tuberculosis that have been reported in the country.

Swaminathan, who was the former DG, ICMR and recently appointed as the Principal adviser at the Union Health Ministry for National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) speaking exclusively with ANI said, "I think that Mpox is at the moment, not a very big threat for us, because it's not endemic, mainly taking imported cases. Some people are traveling to Africa and coming back. So as long as we have good surveillance, and I think that all the ports of entry already, we have strengthened surveillance, all states have trained.

"There are isolation beds which have been made ready. Monkey pox disease in majority of cases, people recover from it, and you require very close contact and sexual contact. In fact, the clade one is spreading through sexual contact, so people are also being informed for the precautions. So I think that monkeypox is manageable."

She mentioned that apart from monkeypox, there have been lots of outbreaks in India, which are occurring from time to time in different states. "Recently, there was an outbreak in Gujarat, which is still unknown. There was a Chandipura virus outbreak two months ago. There's Nipah virus which keeps coming up from time to time in Kerala."

These, said the scientist are the ones which will "actually test our capacity, surveillance, of detection, response and preparation."

"So the type of small outbreaks, if you're able to handle it well, then we can handle even the major epidemics and pandemics. So it's a good time for all the state governments actually to rehearse and to prepare to put in place all the systems," said Swaminathan.

Stressing on the "most important component" of human resource, Swaminathan emphasised on the need to have to have a very well trained and a well motivated workforce at national, state, district and subdistrict levels. "Then only we'll be able to actually manage," Swaminathan said.

The scientist said that "One Health" approach need to work together for humans, animals and the environment.

"Surveillance needs to be done in all the three, has to be shared so that action can be taken. Because if you are able to pick up diseases and animals early, then the human spread can be minimized. You can't completely avoid it, but you can minimize it. And you can also be prepared," she said.

"You can detect it early, and you can get ready or vaccine or drug, whatever you need. Animal immunization is another area where we need to probably do more more research and more roll out more of vaccines for animals, more concepts of One Health, basically saying that these different sectors need to come together," Swaminathan further said.

Meanwhile, as per the latest report released by the Centre India accounts for 25 per cent of the world's tuberculosis burden and over 25 lakh new cases of the disease were notified in 2024 in India.

Swaminathan, the Principal adviser at the Union Health Ministry for National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) speaking Exclusive to ANI said, "we are actually not on track to eliminate anyway."

Stating that eliminating TB in the country was a very ambitious goal, Swaminathan said that PM Narendra Modi was the first head of state who promised to eliminate the infectious disease. This she said demonstrated a "high level of political will."

On how vaccines can help India triumph over TB she explained, "As I mentioned earlier, vaccine is going to be a very important tool. If they have a good vaccine for TB, it will be much easier. Definitely, India needs to put lot of investment and effort into developing a TB vaccine.

"Already , there are many efforts going on in India. Different companies are working on different types of vaccine, so there are at least three different products which different companies are developing, and also there's lot of work going on in the research centers and academic centers. So I think if we go ahead with the mission mode like we did during covid, then India should be able to come up with better vaccine within the next five to 10 years," she said.

The Covid 19 pandemic coupled with scientific, technical challenges and subclinical tuberculosis have contributed to the delay in elimination of TB by 2025.

"There are still a lot of scientific and technical challenges, and because of Covid, we lost a lot of time. India has made a progress over the last few years, but during pandemic, we had a setback. All countries had a setback because of the lockdown and things like that, and all the resources were shifted to COVID, so there was a big drop in the case finding and notification, increase in the incidence and an increase in the mortality data, which WHO has collected from around the World after the pandemic," Swaminathan said.

Dr Swaminathan also explained that India is recovering back to the pre pandemic level, "In 2022 we started again, recovering back to the pre pandemic level and then detecting large number of cases, more than 2.5 million, and a cure rate is around 86 per cent now. So we are now back on track, if you look at our TB prevalence, came out the TB prevalence survey something like 300 per 100,000 that means we still have a very large burden of TB."

Detailing on how vaccines can help in the eradication of TB the WHO chief scientist said, "If you see the history of infectious disease, only diseases which have a good vaccine have been eliminated. Also Polio, which is close to elimination, we have not eliminated any disease without a good vaccine." (ANI)