Delhi University has announced that it will be building a new public health school, keeping in mind the requirement for research and manpower in the field.

Delhi University has announced that it will be establishing a new public health school, citing the requirement for manpower and research in the field.

The Delhi University has said that the new institute will be set up using the funds from the Institute of Eminence scheme. The varsity had received the tag in September 2019. This has been keeping in mind the current health emergency in the country and the need for public health research due to the coronavirus outbreak. 

Professor R N K Bamezai, a specialist in the field of human genetics, has been appointed the honorary director of the institute. Professor Bamezai is a former dean of the School of Life Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University and former vice-chancellor of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University.

An 11-member advisory council, chaired by Professor K Shrinath Reddy, president of Public Health Foundation of India, has also been constituted to design and manage programmes of the institute.

“The overarching aim of the school is to encourage students and researchers to experience a plethora of programmes of interdisciplinary nature and relevance which are not available at present in this or any other institution. This novel institution offers new avenues to pool academic and infrastructure resources to look at the Public Health theme in an integrated fashion and contribute to national development. The University of Delhi understands its responsibility to train and utilize human knowledge and infrastructure resources for understanding and innovating novel ways of diagnosis, prevention, and cure of various communicable and non-communicable diseases,” read a statement by the registrar of the university.