CM20.1-4 | Recent Advances in Community Medicine — Glossary

A WHO-led preparedness aspiration to develop, manufacture, and deploy safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics within 100 days of a future PHEIC declaration.

Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission — India's national digital health ecosystem launched 2021, comprising ABHA (unique health IDs), Health Facility Registry, Healthcare Professionals Registry, and IHIP surveillance platform.

Ayushman Bharat Health Account — a 14-digit unique digital health ID linking a citizen's longitudinal health records across providers, enabling care continuity and population-level digital surveillance.

Antimicrobial Resistance — the ability of microorganisms to resist the effects of drugs to which they were previously susceptible, driven by antibiotic overuse in humans, animals, and agriculture.

The district-level authority (typically Chief Medical Officer) responsible for registering facilities under PCPNDT, conducting inspections, and prosecuting violations; has power to seal non-compliant machines.

The legal standard for civil medical negligence derived from Bolam vs Friern (1957): a doctor is not negligent if their practice conforms to a responsible body of professional opinion in that specialty, even if other practitioners would differ.

The proportion of confirmed cases who die from a disease; used as a real-time proxy for pathogen virulence combined with healthcare quality during an active outbreak.

Central legislation providing remedies to consumers for deficiencies in goods and services, including medical services; established three-tier forums (District, State, National) and introduced the Central Consumer Protection Authority.

Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003 — prohibits smoking in public places (Section 4), bans tobacco advertising (Section 5), prohibits sale to persons under 18 years (Section 6), and mandates pictorial health warnings (Section 7).

COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network — India's digital vaccine administration platform that tracked over 2.2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses and is now available as reusable public health infrastructure.

Ethics and Medical Registration Board — one of four autonomous boards under the NMC, responsible for maintaining the National Medical Register and adjudicating professional misconduct complaints.

India's oldest public health emergency legislation; grants state governments power to issue epidemic control measures; amended in 2020 to add central government powers and criminal penalties for violence against healthcare workers during epidemic duty.

The prescribed consent and record form under the PCPNDT Act, which must be completed for every prenatal diagnostic procedure; records patient details, indication for the procedure, consent, and clinical findings (excluding foetal sex).

Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme — India's national surveillance system launched 2004, operating through a three-tier structure with P (peripheral), L (laboratory), and S (syndromic) reporting forms.

International Health Regulations 2005 — a legally binding WHO instrument requiring member states to build core surveillance capacities and notify WHO within 24 hours of events that may constitute a PHEIC.

The legal requirement that a patient be informed of material risks, benefits, alternatives, and the right to refuse before a procedure — the 'patient standard' (what a reasonable patient would want to know) applies in India per Samira Kohli vs Prabha Manchanda 2008.

The test from Jacob Mathew vs State of Punjab (2005) for criminal medical negligence under Section 304A IPC: negligence must be 'gross, culpable, or reckless' — mere inadvertence or error of judgment is insufficient for criminal liability.

Joint External Evaluation — a WHO voluntary collaborative process that assesses a country's IHR core capacities across 19 technical areas using a five-point scoring scale.

Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021 — increased the gestational limit for special categories (rape survivors, minors, differently-abled women) from 20 to 24 weeks; requires two RMP opinions for this window; no limit for foetal anomalies with Medical Board approval.

National Medical Commission Act 2020 — replaced the Indian Medical Council Act 1956; created the NMC with four boards including the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) that oversees professional conduct and registration.

A WHO-FAO-UNEP-WOAH integrated framework recognising that human health, animal health, and environmental health are interdependent, requiring cross-sectoral collaboration for effective disease prevention.

Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act 1994 — bans sex determination for non-medical purposes, requires mandatory registration of facilities with ultrasound machines, and mandates completion of Form F for every prenatal diagnostic procedure.

Public Health Emergency of International Concern — a formal WHO declaration under IHR 2005 signalling an extraordinary public health event that constitutes a risk to other states and requires a coordinated international response.

A multidisciplinary team (epidemiologist, clinician, microbiologist, district health officer) dispatched within 24–48 hours of an IDSP alert to investigate a suspected outbreak in the field.

Risk Communication and Community Engagement — the WHO framework for communicating health risks to communities during emergencies with honesty about uncertainty, local language use, and engagement of trusted community voices.

The mean number of secondary infections generated by one infectious individual in a population with partial immunity or control measures in place; Rt < 1 indicates a declining outbreak.

The Indian Penal Code provision for causing death by negligence, applicable to medical practitioners only when negligence is gross/reckless (Jacob Mathew standard), punishable by imprisonment up to 2 years and/or fine.

MoH guidelines (India) establishing the legal framework for virtual medical consultations including permitted prescription categories, platform requirements, identity verification, and documentation standards for audio-video consultations.

The transmission of a pathogen from an animal reservoir to a human host, representing the most common mechanism of emerging infectious disease emergence (60-70% of EIDs are zoonotic).