With 3-tier surveillance, top Indian scientist gets ready to battle typhoid

  • Gagandeep Kang is obsessed with data. From her early days as a student in Vellore’s Christian Medical College (CMC) in the 90s to building a nationwide network of surveillance centres for rotavirus, one of the major causes of diarrhoea in India, through the 2000s,the 56-year-old scientist has long identified the need for quality data to build medical public policy.
  • Now, Kang – who in April became the first woman from India to become a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society in London – is building the disease burden case for typhoid, which kills around 200,000 people annually, most of them in India.
  • Kang and her associates at CMC and Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, have built a three-tier surveillance system, spanning small catchment hospitals in rural areas to major cities.