The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is going to establish a Provincial Disease Surveillance Centre to make arrangements to prevent the spread of disease and communicate directions and recommend measures to concerned line departments.
The Provincial Disease Surveillance Centre will be headed by the Director, Public Health, in Directorate General of Health Services, who will be assisted by officers and health professionals. For the purpose of such centre, the provincial government had already passed KP Public Health (Surveillance and Response) Act, 2017 in the recently concluded session of the provincial assembly. The decision of the establishment of such centre was taken after the outbreak of the dengue fever, which affected thousands of people and claimed nearly 70 lives in the province.
The Centre will collect, receive and exchange information with district disease surveillance centers and after verification will provide all information and data with regard to events, diseases and persons affected with notified and other diseases and condition received from district disease surveillance centers to the public health committee for assessment of information related to events and diseases. It will forward the assessment of events and diseases in prescribed manner to National International Health Regulations, 2005 of the World Health Organization, as notified by federal government from time to time, within twenty four hours (24) of the completion of such assessment process.
The centre will also provide technical support to the district disease surveillance centers as and when required and make arrangements for the implementation of the recommendations from the focal point of the international health regulations.
The centers to be established under the Act, will also develop and implement a health hazard management system to identify assess, investigate and manage health hazards in the environment in collaboration with line departments or agencies of government. It will identify and assess relevant health hazards and risks to public health by identifying the hazards relevant to public health that may give rise to a public health emergency and assess the risk of the identified hazards through risk assessment methodology; review the hazard identification and risk assessment at least annually and updating when required.
The provincial disease surveillance centre will also undertake a preliminary assessment to determine the level of potential impact in cases of complaints reports received by it; and conduct investigations and risk assessments of reported health hazards in the environment in consultation with the people of the affected area and government agencies and to evaluate the possible risks to public health.
Under the Act of law, the provincial government will also establish District Disease Surveillance Centers for each district, which will be headed by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of the concerned district and in his absence by the District Health Officer (DHO) concerned and will also be assisted by such number of officers as may be required.
The District Disease Surveillance Centres will coordinate, collect, analyze and interpret information received from disease surveillance reporting offices ie all health facilities within the district.
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