Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced various measures his ministry would be taking to improve the health delivery in the country at the 11th conference of Central Council of Health and Family Welfare held here on Monday.

To control infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, H1N1, measles, polio, chikungunya and dengue, Azad said that time has come to “seriously consider creating specialized public health cadres for prevention and management of these diseases”.

“A Directorate of Public Health should be established with people well trained in laboratory practices, surveillance, outreach investigations etc. Such a cadre must have personnel from the community level to state level experts,” he said.

Non-communicable diseases are also causes of premature mortality in India and to counter these, government’s programme for prevention and control of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke will be launched in 100 districts in 23 states in its first phase.

Mental Health Programme and a programme for the elderly will also be launched shortly, announced Azad.

Bringing the focus to manufacture of spurious drugs and adulterated food, Azad said, “The state governments actually enforce drug and food standards through their drugs and food inspectors. In reality enforcement is lax and very poor, as more than half the posts of food and drug inspectors in our country are vacant. Our labs are outdated with no equipment or trained personnel. Complaints of contaminated food or spurious drugs keep coming in reflecting non-enforcement of the Act.”