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.