ICMR centre in UP on anvil, verbal autopsy study from January

New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is likely to get a new regional centre in Gorakhpur soon, to carry out research on Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) child mortality and malnutrition, the ICMR chief said.

"It will be our additional Regional Medical Research Centre and should be inaugurated soon," Director-General of the ICMR, Soumya Swaminathan, said.

In the past few months, several children had lost their lives due to AES at a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh's town of Gorakhpur.

Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and AES have been claiming lives of many children in the state in the last few years.

The new centre, therefore, is likely to boost the health infrastructure capabilities in the state.

According to the official website of the ICMR, the top research body has Regional Medical Research Centres in Bhubaneswar, Dibrugarh, Port Blair, Jabalpur, Jodhpur, and Belgaum.

The ICMR chief, who will soon take charge as the deputy director general for programmes, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, held a press conference today on the future of medical research in the country.

She also said a new two-year study will begin in January next year, seeking to "improve the system of reporting of the causes of all deaths in India".

"The study is related to the verbal autopsy, wherein you go to a household and record the circumstances around death, when did the person fall ill, how long was the person unwell, among other details.

"The study will be started on a pilot basis in three districts. We want to evolve a system that we want that India will adopt it. So, we are just doing to demonstrate it," she said.

The three states would be Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Assam, the ICMR chief added.

She also shared information on tuberculosis vaccine research and clinical trials.