School of Public Health and Indian Public Health Association celebrates World Health Day

CHANDIGARH: School of Public Health and Indian Public Health Association- Chandigarh Chapter with support from NVBDCP, Chandigarh celebrate World Health Day today at School of Public Health, PGIMER, Chandigarh.
The World Health Day is celebrated on the 7 ^thApril on the foundation day of World Health Organization (WHO) to draws attention to a public health problem of global proportions and what needs to be done to address it.This year the objective is to highlight the serious and increasing threat of vector-borne diseases, with the slogan "Small bite, big threat".
On this occasion, prof. Rajesh Kumar, head of the School of Public Health expressed his concern regarding the burden of vector borne diseases by quoting the fact that "more than half the world's population is at risk from vector-borne diseases.
Every year, more than one billion people are infected and more than one million die from vector-borne diseases."
Dr. Ravindra Khaiwal, Assistant professor of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health emphasized that vector-borne diseases such as Dengue, Malaria are entirely preventable by simple protective measure such as sleeping under a bednet, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers and using insect repellent.
Dr. PVM Lakshmi, assistant professor of Epidemiology, highlighted that looking at the trend of vector borne diseases Chandigarh forecasted that we might witness a surge in the cases of dengue this year.
She urged the officials and staff of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Chandigarh to take effective control measures to combat the threat.
Dr. Naresh Kumar, assistant director of Malaria and state programme officer, IDSP said that "We have been able to curb the incidence of vector-borne diseases by 65% in the past 3 years through a series of control measures and will continue our efforts to make Chandigarh a malaria-free territory."