Department of Health & Family Welfare, Punjab commenced the screening programme to detect the deafness among new-born children during a meeting organised today on National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD) in association with ICMR, WHO, BIRAC-DBT. The meeting was attended by more than 70 officials from Indian Council of Medical Research Headquarters, New Delhi, World Health Organisation (WHO SEARO), Dr. R.K. Srivastava, Advisor to DG (Disability), Dr. Arun Aggarwal, Ex Dean, MAMC & WHO Expert on Deafness, District ENT Nodal Officers, all District Civil Hospitals Paediatricians and ENT Departments of all Government Medical Colleges in Punjab.Disclosing this here today, Dr. Rajiv Bhalla Director Health and Family Welfare said the objectives of the meeting were to identify the partners for assessing the burden of deafness through screening at birth and regular intervals later and to impart training to the Nodal Officers, Medical Officers and other para-medical personnel to identify & manage deafness in its early stages. He said that in second phase, training would be provided to the Anganwadi & ASHA workers for the tracking as well as data collection for the screening campaign.
He said that this national level meeting on for Prevention and Control of Deafness programme has given a clear direction to achieve the set target. He said that the data would be collected in a systematic manner under the research mode from the district level and clinical trials of the newer technologies can be evaluated for their reliability, validity and cost-effectiveness.He also assured the Nodal Officers for all possible support for infra-structure and manpower. Dr. R.K. Srivastava and Dr. Arun Aggarwal carried out the ‘Gap Analysis’ of current situation with relation to infra-structure and manpower availability in all districts of Punjab. All the District Nodal Officers also shared their concerns in the meeting.Advisor to World Health Organisation addressed the participants through video-conferencing. He told that deafness has been identified as key priority area during 70th ‘World Health Assembly’ in May 2017. He informed that this is the first such programme on deafness in India.
The model developed in Punjab will be used to launch such programmes in other states of India and South-East Asian countries under WHO-SEARO office. He assured them all technical support and taking it further.Mr. Rajiv Bhalla Director Health and Family Welfare said that new born screening will be carried out in selected hospitals in all districts, except Tarn Taran, where universal deafness screening will be done by approaching government & private hospitals for institutional deliveries and community screening for home-based deliveries. The programme will be used on a pilot basis, while Government Medical College will provide support to the programme by extending services of audiologists. All three government medical colleges will ensure proper training of ENT surgeons designated as Nodal Officers under NPPCD.