First: AIIMS inaugurates online system to provide data on cause of death

The platform is fully developed by the AIIMS and enables physicians to review the verbal autopsy form and enter the cause of death in the form of a standard international code sitting at their office, the official said.

It also has an online training platform for doctors to learn about the system and on how to arrive at and code the cause of death.

The platform is called Minerva (Mortality in India established through Verbal Autopsies).

The cause of death data is critical for governments to plan and monitor the effectiveness of their health programmes. This system has been in place since 2001 but till last year it was managed by an international agency.

"About 400 doctors have already registered with the system which will start coding of the verbal autopsy forms from next week," the official said.

The AIIMS will provide additional support in the form of training to conduct the verbal autopsy, training physicians to code the cause of death and development of an IT platform for training and coding.

In future, hand-held computers are planned to be used for the collection of data.