The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) plans to set up a hospital-based surveillance network to collect data on sexually transmitted infections (STIs), document patterns and analyze trends.
According to ICMR, the move will help experts to formulate patient management policies, diagnostic protocols and develop a public health policy to address concerns over STIs. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also set a target to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases by 90% by 2030.
A team of experts will study antimicrobial resistance patterns (AMRs) among people diagnosed with STIs for three years as a platform for additional clinical research and advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-based studies in medical colleges in India Will work ICMR.
According to the WHO, there has been a global resurgence of STIs, with an increased rate of over 1 million new cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia infections in both high-income and low-income countries.
“Although STI cases have been widely reported in India, systematic epidemiological studies are not yet available to determine the exact prevalence,” Dr Lokesh Sharma, Senior Scientist, ICMR said in an interview.
“Data on clinical signs, symptoms, laboratory investigations, management protocols, clinical course of STI disease, disease spectrum and outcomes of patients are highly needed. The data will serve as an invaluable tool in estimating the burden of disease present in our society. Once we receive applications from medical institutions, ICMR will review them on a competitive basis by a panel of experts.”
Hospitals will be selected from all regions including East, West, North, South, North East and Central to ensure adequate representation of all regions. Institutions with facilities to diagnose and treat STI patients would be eligible to participate in the study.
Dr Sharma said, “The institute should have qualified doctors, microbiologists and technicians with expertise in STIs, RT PCR facility, which is the infrastructure to conduct anti-microbial resistance studies.”