India is expanding its national capacity to monitor emerging and previously unknown pathogens through the National One Health Mission, according to an update from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Dr Rajiv Bahl. The programme combines surveillance across human, animal and wildlife health with wastewater monitoring and genomic capabilities.

Dr Bahl provided the update in a letter to Rajya Sabha member Ajeet Gopchade. The letter outlined work under the mission, including syndromic surveillance across health systems and efforts to bring different sources of disease information together.

Integrated surveillance across health systems

The mission is undertaking syndromic surveillance across health systems, while integrating human, animal and wildlife surveillance under a single programme. The approach is intended to support the identification of disease signals across these areas rather than examining them separately.

The update comes after calls for a national biosecurity and biodefence strategy. The information provided by the ICMR director general indicates that work on surveillance and pathogen detection is already in progress under the One Health Mission.

Wastewater monitoring is one part of that effort. The programme currently tracks 13 priority pathogens across 47 cities. Wastewater surveillance can provide information about pathogens circulating in a population, although the source material does not specify how individual findings are used or what public health actions may follow.

Wastewater surveillance planned for 75 cities

The wastewater programme is planned to expand to 75 cities in 2027. The proposed increase would extend monitoring beyond the current network of 47 cities while retaining the focus on 13 priority pathogens.

The available update does not identify the additional cities or provide a detailed implementation timetable. It also does not state whether the list of priority pathogens will change as the programme expands.

Alongside surveillance in communities and health systems, India has established five genomic and metagenomic hubs. These facilities are intended to improve the country’s ability to detect novel or previously unknown pathogens.

Genomic and metagenomic capabilities can support the identification and analysis of pathogen material, but the letter does not provide details about the location of the hubs, their staffing or the technologies being used. It also does not disclose any new pathogen identified through the hubs.

Building detection capacity

Taken together, the measures described in the update cover several surveillance areas: syndromic data from health systems, monitoring of human, animal and wildlife populations, wastewater sampling and genomic analysis. The mission’s work therefore involves both tracking known priority pathogens and strengthening the capacity to detect pathogens that have not previously been identified.

The planned expansion from 47 to 75 cities and the establishment of five genomic and metagenomic hubs represent the main capacity-building steps outlined in the update. However, the source material does not provide results, detection figures or an assessment of the programme’s performance so far.

For now, the next stated development is the planned expansion of wastewater surveillance in 2027. Further details on the participating cities, implementation schedule and the findings generated by the integrated surveillance system have not been provided.