From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Jul 27: Cancer, the dreaded menace, has been officially made a notifiable disease in Karnataka.

With this measure, Karnataka becomes the third State in the country to make cancer a notifiable disease after Punjab and West Bengal.

Karnataka’s Health and Family Welfare Minister U T Khader, who announced the issuance of the official notification in Bengaluru on Monday, said the measure would help in facilitating better planning of treatment, prevention policies and research on cancer.

With the official notification on making cancer a notifiable disease in the State, it will be binding on all doctors across the State to report to the Karnataka Cancer Control Committee if they come across a patient suffering from the disease.

This will help in getting a clear picture of the magnitude of the problem, Khader explained.

The State Government has laid out an elaborate plan to implement this notification, he added.

Khader said the national cancer registry programme estimates that one in 12 people in Karnataka may be vulnerable to develop cancer, which become a major concern in the society.

With the State Government notifying cancer, all the hospitals across the State -- both government and private -- will have to mandatorily report any case of cancer that they come across within a period not exceeding one week from the date of diagnosis.

This notification is applicable to all industries, railways, civil, army and other central state government medical agencies, any hospital other hospital, medical institutions other than state-run medical institutions, including Ayurvedic and Unani, he said.

The State Government would constitute the Karnataka Cancer Control Committee that would oversee the implementation of the notification effectively, he said pointing out that the Additional DC, DHO, Family Welfare Officer would be responsible to make the medical institutions to abide by this notification.

In the event of any doctor or the medical institution failing to comply with the rules, the doctor or the medical institution would be liable for the punitive action as decided by the committee.

Exclusive software to monitor Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) implementation was also launched by the minister. 

The Home Department, with the help of National Informatics Centre (NIC) Karnataka State unit, has developed this state-of-art software to monitor COTPA implementation by various departments throughout the State, he revealed.