Public to report disease outbreaks directly through IHIP portal

Vijayawada: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the state medical and health department decided to actively involve the public in the early identification and control of communicable diseases. As part of this effort, complaints and information related to disease outbreaks will now be received directly from citizens through the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) web link, developed under the Central Government’s Disease Surveillance Programme.

Medical, health and family welfare commissioner Veerapandian said in a statement o Wednesday that the initiative aims to ensure that communicable diseases are detected at the primary stage itself and immediate preventive measures are taken. He noted that in several areas, issues such as poor sanitation, improper drainage systems, and contamination of drinking water have led to outbreaks of diseases like diarrhoea and vomiting, affecting large numbers of people.

In many instances, information about such outbreaks reaches higher authorities with delays when routed only through field-level staff. To overcome this gap, the government has decided to make the public active partners in disease surveillance and control, the commissioner explained.

Through the web link (https://ihip.mohfw.gov.in/cbs/#/?campaign_id=202511), people from all districts of the state can now report details of diseases prevailing in their localities and any disease outbreaks. The platform allows citizens to fill in the required details in the on-screen entry fields and upload relevant photographs wherever necessary.

The information submitted by the public will be instantly transmitted to ANMs, primary health centre medical officers, district officials and state-level authorities. Based on these alerts, officials from the field level to higher administrative levels will be alerted and will take immediate and appropriate action.

The commissioner appealed to the public to make effective use of this new facility and cooperate with the Health Department in preventing and controlling communicable diseases across the state.