South Asian nations keen to replicate India's NCD screening programme

The health ministry's non-communicable diseases (NCD) screening programme has attracted several South Asian countries, with Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar evincing interest in the programme, according to a statement released on Tuesday. The programme runs a cloud-based mobile, web and analytics solution application developed by Dell, while Tata Trusts supports implementation of the programme in the states through training and programme management activities.

The statement said the response was following the WHO presenting the programme to the 11 member-countries of the Southeast Asian region for population-based screening and its large-scale usability by field-level health workers.

Introduced in 2017 by the Union health ministry, the NCD screening programme has so far enrolled 80 million persons across 29 states and Union territories, and has already screened about 30 million for common NCDs like diabetes, hypertension and certain cancers, the statement said.


About 6 million have been referred for medical consultations, of whom at least 1.5 million have thus far been treated, it added.

The programme is currently being deployed in 503 districts and will be able to track health trends across the country.

Besides the World Health Organization (WHO), reputed institutions like the National Health Systems Resource Centre, AIIMS, Indian Council for Medical Research, National Institute of Cancer Prevention Research, National Informatics Centre and the IndiaStack team at iSPIRT are also collaborating with the programme.