CHANDIGARH, 25.04.24-The day of 24th April 2024 in Chandigarh for the health-conscious folks started with annual Walkathon to celebrate the foundation anniversary of World NCD Federation. The group of walkathon participants started their journey from Kairon Block PGIMER Chandigarh and marked end of the walkathon at Sukhna Lake Chandigarh. Dr. Maninder Singh Hira, Athletic Coach, UT Sports Department, Chandigarh and Ms, Shireen Ahluwalia, Gold Medalist at the Youth Asia Athletics Championship (Tashkent Uzbekistan. 2023) flagged off the walkathon. At the Sukhna Lake. Prof JS Thakur (Prof of Dept of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, President, World NCD Federation) and Prof. Sanjay K Bhadada (Prof and Head, Department of endocrinology) PGIMER shared the importance of an old saying OIL OF SOIL. He emphasized that the foods and oils native to an area are best suited for the NCD-free life of people native to the area.
Following the walkathon, the CME was organized as the 9th Foundation Day CME of World NCD Federation with the theme Disease Registries for prevention and control of NCDs and subtheme Release of the first report of the Chandigarh NCD Registry. There were 4 technical sessions on Feasibility of Disease Registries for prevention and control of NCDs, Individual Disease registries, Panel discussion on Strengthening of NCD Registries for NCD Control and Facility based Registries: Program Officer perspective.
In the first technical session, Prof Ajay Duseja presented on the Feasibility of the MASLD Registry, which is a high priority in the current scenario. He highlighted the need of the community based registry for the same given the prevalence of the same upto 82% . Prof Ashutosh Aggarwal discussed about the feasibility and operational challenges in setting up of COPD registry at population level. Dr Vivek Kumar highlighted about the existing CKD registry and detailed about the CKD Cohort with a bio bank at PGIMER, Chandigarh. Dr Navneet, WHO Consultant from the state of Punjab shared the updates and feasibility of the Hypertension registry on the basis of India Hypertension Control initiative outcomes.
The second technical session, Prof Rakesh Kapoor highlighted about the usefulness of Cancer registries for cancer control activities. Dr Dheeraj Khurana discussed about the potential and importance of Stroke registries which were started way back in 1970s. He shared the experience of running a hospital-based Stroke registry and the implications in terms of the health outcome of the patients and a better follow up and rehabilitation through registry follow up. Prof Sanjay K Bhadada discussed about the Endocrine registries.
The Inaugural session was graced by Dr Suman Singh, DHS UT, Dr Rakesh Sharma, Director Medical Education and Research, Himachal Pradesh and Dr Prashant Mathur, Director, NCDIR-ICMR Bangalore. Prof JS Thakur gave the welcome address and shared the key highlights of Chandigarh NCD Registry and Fact sheet of Population based Cancer Registry Chandigarh and Mohali.
Prof JS Thakur moderated the panel discussion on Strengthening of NCD Registries for NCD Control. Dr Jeyraj Pandian shared his experience about running the Stroke registry in urban and rural settings of Ludhiana, and he shared that almost half of the patients didn’t reach the healthcare facilities and seek the traditional or non-specialized care. Prof. Usha Singh said 32% of the total retinoblastoma cases which are registered in the Registry, refused to take the treatment. The factors affecting the late detection of the retinoblastoma including the social taboos and reluctance to the surgery until it is too late. Dr Awadhesh Pandey shared his experience of running HBCR in GMCH-32 and key challenges. Dr Sreenivas Reddy HOD Cardiology GMCH32 highlighted about the acute cardiac event registry and talked about the role of registry data in prevention and control of CVDs. Dr Pankaj Malhotra shared the use of registry has led us to know the burden of aplastic anaemia in Chandigarh, which can let us know the age adjusted incidence and mortality rates, that was earlier available for the other countries and India was probably lacking the same information on the subject. Prof Ashok Kumar mentioned about the hospital-based registries, we use the hospital data. He added that in PGIMER, the data is stored for 10 years data which in itself is a challenge, so digitization can a potential solution.
The last session on facility-based registries was chaired by Prof. Rajesh Vijayvargiya and Prof. Vipin Koushal. During the session, prof. Ashish Bhalla shared his experience of running the Covid 19 Registry and insights on comorbidities due to NCDs in his study at PGIMER. Dr. Gopal Chauhan (State program officer, NPNCD Himachal Pradesh) shared his experience of feasibility and facility based NCD registry in Himachal Pradesh. Dr. Sandeep Singh (Assistant director, State program officer, NPNCD Punjab) talked about the facility based NCD registry in Punjab.
Dr. AK Attri, Director Principal, GMCH 32, Chandigarh and Dr. Vipin Koushal, Medical Superintendent, PGIMER graced the valedictory session. Prof Thakur reiterated that the Chandigarh NCD Registry is first of its kind in 11 countries of south east Asia and the 3rd Integrated NCD Registry in the world. The dignitaries appreciated the role of World NCD Federation with partners, PGIMER and Health Department, Chandigarh,in running a first of its kind registry and highlighted that such intervention is the need of the hour to tackle burden of NCDs. During the session, the participants were awarded for best Poster presentation at the CME.