Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, virtually laid the foundation stone for National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) branches in six states namely Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.

NCDC branches in the states and UTs will support the state governments in timely disease surveillance and monitoring and will enable early warning leading to timely intervention based on evidence gathered from the field. The state branches will coordinate with NCDC HQR in New Delhi with real-time sharing of data and information aided by cutting-edge technology. 

Currently, NCDC has eight branches in states with a focus on one or few diseases, these will be repurposed and new branches are being added with the mandate for integrated disease surveillance activities, dealing with Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR), multi-sectoral and entomological investigations etc.

Union Health Minister also inaugurated the NCDC Laboratory Block -1, Residential Complex and NRL of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme. The NCDC Laboratory Block will house state-of-the-art testing and referral laboratories concerned with bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases of public health concern. The laboratory is equipped with 50 high-capacity labs which include 30 Bio-safety level3 labs, five RT-PCR labs and 15 other labs. The laboratories will be designed to not only offer the testing facility but also provide hands-on training, capacity building and quality assurance services to the whole network of laboratories across the country.