Dr Francoise Cluzeau and Dr Laura Downey travelled to Delhi, India for meetings with colleagues at a number of allied institutions, including the WHO India office, the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Important meetings were also held at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) with the joint secretary for health, and with the director of the Indian Council for Medical Research.

Topics for discussion included the progress of development of Standard Treatment Guidelines (STGs) in 10 high priority topics, including non-communicable diseases, child and family health, and respiratory diseases, on which iDSI colleagues have been providing technical assistance. See here for further background to this work.

A number of these guidelines are now nearing completion and two (hypertension and diabetic foot) have been submitted to the MoHFW to be uploaded on the website for public consultation before being formally signed off by the Director General of Health Services.

Dr Downey and iDSI Consultant in India, Dr Abha Mehndiratta, are working closely with the Primary Care Task Force of the MoHFW, state governments and non-governmental organisations to roll-out the pilot implementation of these STGs and related quality standards at the state-level in the new year. This will be an exciting and challenging undertaking for iDSI, with the average population of the larger states in India exceeding 60 million people.