By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: The Department of Community and Family Medicine, AIIMS Bhubaneswar has made yet another major contribution to improving healthcare services in India by setting up a new ‘Travel Health Clinic’ in the hospital.
This is the first of its kind in Odisha and one among the very few in the country. The inaugural ceremony was attended by Prof (Dr) Ashutosh Biswas, Executive Director and CEO and Prof (Dr) Dillip Kumar Parida, Medical Superintendent, AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Dr. Bijay Kumar Panigrahy, Director, Family Welfare, Dr Suchitra Sasmal, Senior Regional Director, Govt. of India, Dr Tapas Patra, State Immunisation Officer, of Odisha, Dr Biswaranjan Dash, Airport Public Health Officer were the other dignitaries who graced the occasion.
The special clinic will run twice in a week and will provide imminent travellers with essential vaccination services including some country specific vaccines like Yellow fever vaccine, advise regarding healthy behaviour during travel, assembling a customized medical kit for use in emergencies and the other ‘Dos and Don’ts’ during the period.
On an average, there are 3500 beneficiaries for Yellow fever vaccine yearly in our Yellow fever vaccine clinic. Executive Director Dr Biswas urged every traveler to seek travel related health advice before the journey to avoid contracting and transmitting illnesses beyond national frontiers. Dr. Patra mentioned that being the state immunization officer, he used to get a lot of calls and queries from people regarding travel advice. “People will now have somewhere to go and a team of health professionals to counsel”, he added.
Dr Biswaranjan Dash insisted on the importance of continued surveillance at the two points of entry into Odisha, namely Biju Pattnaik international Airport, Bhubaneswar and the Paradeep Port to prevent introduction of ‘foreign’ infectious agents through unaware passengers. Dr. Panigrahy expressed his happiness in the new step taken in the field of travel medicine and agreed that it will surely boost the economic growth and tourism industry of the state. Dr Sasmal also expressed her best wishes for the clinic and made a commitment to support the cause in the future.
Dr Sonu Hangma Subba, Head of the Department of Community and Family Medicine, AIIMS Bhubaneswar welcomed the guests and congratulated her team for taking up this novel and timely initiative in travel health. Dr Swayam Pragyan Parida, Additional Professor and in-charge of Immunization Clinic, AIIMS, Bhubaneswar thanked her team of immunization clinic, Dr Arvind Singh, Additional Professor and Dr. Abhisek Mishra, Assistant professor, Department of CMFM, AIIMS Bhubaneswar for their efforts and concluded the ceremony with the hope that the ‘Travel Health Clinic’ in AIIMS BBSR will pave the way to increasing public awareness about travel health, promoting research and innovations in travel medicine and encourage the setting up of travel clinics in other medical centers of the country.
