CHENNAI: After a surge in the incidence of pneumonia in children in China due to causes like influenza, mycoplasma pneumoniae and SARSCoV-2, the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (DPH) has instructed officials of the State Health Department to enhance the surveillance of pneumonia cases.

The Union Health Ministry via the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) met with all the State public health officers on increasing the surveillance of respiratory illness, pneumonia including severe acute respiratory illness, acute respiratory illness, influenza-like illness and report them on the IDSP-IHIP (Integrated Health Information Platform) regularly.

The Union Ministry has recommended to enhance out-patient and in-patient surveillance for respiratory illnesses predominantly affecting children. The deputy director of health services in all districts and deans of all medical college hospitals have been asked to keep track of these cases as a part of enhanced surveillance. Health care facilities also need to be strengthened to manage patients.

A letter from the DPH to healthcare facility officials in the State requested all medical college and hospitals including private facilities to report cases of severe acute respiratory illness, acute respiratory illness, influenza-like illnesses in IDSP-IHIP portal. The deans of medical colleges and other allied institutions have been instructed to step up surveillance of both out-patients and in patients and report the cases, if any, in the portal.

The deans of medical colleges and other allied institutions have been told to step up surveillance of patients