India’s response to Covid-19 at Points of entry had been pre-emptive, proactive, and graded. The Points of Entry (PoEs) are the first line of defense for the country to protect us from any Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The effective surveillance at PoEs, delayed the arrival and spread of COVID-19 which allowed the nation ample time to develop the necessary public health infrastructure and capacities to effectively handle the pandemic.” Shri Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary stated this while addressing Workshop on “Roadmap to Strengthen Public Health Preparedness and Response Capabilities of Points of Entry (PoEs) in India”.

The 2-day workshop was inaugurated by the Chief Guest; Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary in presence of Prof. (Dr.) Atul Goel, Director General Health Services, Lav Agarwal, Additional Secretary and Dr Sudarsan Mandal, Deputy Director General.  The workshop was attended by officials from Airport Health Organizations (APHOs)/ Port Health Organizations (PHOs)/ Land Port Health Organizations (LPHOs), IDSP, NCDC, Disaster Management officials, partner organizations like NIDM, SDMAs, CISF, etc.

While addressing the gathering Agarwal highlighted the various commendable innovations taken to strengthen PoEs against the pandemic - State of art paperless health screening; Air Suvidha Portal, the deployment of digital technologies to facilitate planning, surveillance, testing, contact tracing. He further added that we need to institutionalize the lessons learnt in the pandemic for the future generations. The Best practices and benchmarks of performance at Points of Entry we have today have evolved by our collective efforts as a team.

The two-day workshop on “Roadmap to Strengthen Public Health Preparedness and Response Capabilities of PoEs in India” during 06 – 07 September 2022 at New Delhi is being organized by Central International Health (IH) Division, Directorate General of Health Services (Dte.GHS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Govt. of India.

This workshop provides a platform to carry forward the lessons learnt during the pandemic for future strengthening. The workshop also aims to provide a platform for cross learning and knowledge sharing to bring together various stakeholders working in the field of public health and disaster management.