International public health conference to be held in Chennai this yr

CHENNAI: The logo for the century celebrations of the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and the International Public Health Conference was unveiled by Health Minister Ma Subramanian at an event held on Thursday evening.

The Public Health Department in Tamil Nadu completes 100 years this year, as it was started in 1922 during the British rule with Colonel S D Russell as its Director. In order to mark the century year, the first International Public Health Conference will be held in Chennai for three days in December for the first time in India.

The Health Minister announced that the conference will bring together public health professionals, pioneers and researchers to Tamil Nadu from across the globe, who will share their skills and experiences on a variety of topics. The journey of 100 years of Tamil Nadu Public Health Department will be showcased at the International Health Conference as an exhibition.

The volume 2 of the newsletter by the DPH was also released by the minister. The newsletter was started in June 2021 and has published 24 issues so far. The newsletter features major events in the public health sector, news releases, and quizzes related to the public health sector.

Civil registration system launched:

The event was followed by the launch of the revamped civil registration system website that will enable direct download of birth and death certificates and the public health newsletter for the second year was also released. The website has been revamped at a cost of Rs. 75 lakh and it will ensure that th birth and death certificates can be downloaded from the website without any hassle.

The process of uploading the certificates on the website has been started. The work is being carried out at 16,348 registration centers by the Registrars of Births and Deaths of the Revenue Department, Municipality, Corporation, Municipality and Health Department in 38 districts of Tamil Nadu.

After January 1, 2018, birth and death registration work was done by different departments in different softwares in the State, making it difficult to keep track of births and deaths. Uniform software has been developed in the public health sector and birth and death registration work is being carried out by the Registrar of Births and Deaths of all concerned departments through the website at all registration centers.

A release from the department stated that the work of uploading birth and death records on the website of the Panchayat, Municipality, Primary Health Center and rural areas has been started for the certificates between 2013 to 2017 as part of the first phase. Birth and death records will be computerised in each taluka office and funds have been allocated to the Deputy Director of All Health Departments and Additional District Births and Death Registrars for this purpose and detailed explanations have been given to carry out the same.