Dito at 05:56, 2 October 2023

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{{Short description|Indian public health official (1931-2020)}}
{{Use Indian English|date=September 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}

{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Mahendra Dutta
| office = 30th President of the [[Indian Public Health Association]]
| term_start = 1 January 1987
| term_end = 31 December 1987
| birth_date = {{birth date|1931|05|26}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|2020|02|17|1931|05|26}}
| education = {{plainlist|
* [[Forman Christian College]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]])
* [[Government Medical College, Amritsar]] ([[Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery|MBBS]])
* [[All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health]] (Diploma in Public Health)}}
| birth_place = [[Faridabad]], [[Haryana]], India
| death_place = Faridabad, Haryana, India
| children = 3
}}

'''Mahendra Dutta''' (26 May 1931 – 17 February 2020) was an Indian [[public health]] official, best known for his efforts to eradicate [[smallpox]] in India as the appraisal officer for smallpox in [[Bihar]] during the [[1974 smallpox epidemic in India|1974 epidemic]]. He later served as Health Commissioner of [[New Delhi]], Chief Epidemiologist of the [[National Centre for Disease Control]], and Deputy Director General of the [[Ministry of Health and Family Welfare]]'s public health operations.<ref name=":0" /> Additionally, he was a founding member of the [[Indian Public Health Association]], serving as its president in 1987.<ref>{{Cite web |title=List of the Presidents, General Secretaries, and Treasurers of the Indian Public Health Association Since Inception |url=https://www.iphaonline.org/ipha-office-bearers/ |access-date=1 October 2023 |website=[[Indian Public Health Association]]}}</ref> Dutta's career is featured in an episode of [[Céline Gounder|Céline Gounder's]] 2023 podcast series ''Epidemic: Eradicating Smallpox''.<ref>{{Cite podcast |url=https://www.justhumanproductions.org/podcasts/s2e2-do-you-know-dutta |title=Do You Know Dutta? |website=Epidemic: Eradicating Smallpox |publisher=[[Kaiser Family Foundation|Kaiser Health News]] |host=[[Céline Gounder]] |date=1 August 2023 |access-date=30 September 2023}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Mahendra Dutta was born on 26 May 1931 in [[Faridabad]], [[Haryana]]. His undergraduate studies at [[Forman Christian College]] in Lahore (now in Pakistan) were transitioned to [[Shimla]], [[Himachal Pradesh]] due to the 1947 [[partition of India]]. Inspired by his father's work as a [[Rockefeller Foundation]] fellow practicing as a public health physician, Dutta pursued a Diploma in Public Health at the [[All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health]] in [[Kolkata]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Foege |first=William |last2=Dutta |first2=Mahendra |date=10 July 2008 |title=Dutta M. with Foege W. |url=https://globalhealthchronicles.org/items/show/3537 |access-date=30 September 2023 |website=Global Health Chronicles |publisher=[[David J. Sencer CDC Museum]]}}</ref>

==Public health career==
In 1981, Mahendra Dutta published a retrospective of India's National Smallpox Eradication Programme (NSEP), which from its 1962 founding to 1966, vaccinated nearly the entire population of India. Despite these efforts, smallpox outbreaks continued, prompting Dutta to advocate for a search and containment approach, in which cases are identified through community outreach to focus on [[ring vaccination]] of those most likely to be infected. Following the [[World Health Organization]]'s December 1979 announcement of global smallpox eradication, Dutta argued for ending smallpox vaccinations, given that other animal species do not serve as a reservoir of the variola virus.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dutta |first=Mahendra |date=1981 |title=Vaccination Against Smallpox: Is It Relevant Now? |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02824988 |journal=The Indian Journal of Pediatrics |volume=48 |pages=257–259 |via=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer Link]]}}</ref>

In July 2008, Dutta met with [[William Foege]], a former Director of the US [[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]] (CDC) who had previously worked with him on smallpox eradication efforts, as part of the CDC's Histories of Smallpox Eradication Program to reflect on their intervention efforts developing India's modern-day public health agencies.<ref name=":0" /> In Foege's 2011 book ''House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox'', he credited Dutta with identifying embezzlement in the Bihar eradication campaign and replacing its corrupt staff manager.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Foege |first=William H. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pn9mf |title=House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-520-94889-1 |series=California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public}}</ref>

Dutta's 2011 analysis of the smallpox eradication campaign in [[Bihar]] focused on coordination between the state government's epidemiological reporting, the national government's mobilization of community health workers, and international organizations overseeing vaccine distribution and recruitment of foreign epidemiologists. He highlighted partnerships with the [[Tata Group]] in identifying cases among the company's workforce of [[Economic migrant|economic migrants]] that would travel between densely populated urban centers and their native villages, spreading smallpox across the country. Lastly, he praised the innovation of printing cards depicting a child with smallpox to provide communities with a visual reference for identifying and reporting cases.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dutta |first=Mahendra |last2=Basu |first2=R.N. |date=3 March 2011 |title=Lessons From Smallpox Eradication Campaign in Bihar State and in India |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11019128 |journal=[[Vaccine (journal)]] |volume=29 |issue=Supplement 4 |pages=D19-D21 |doi=10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.12.001 |via=[[ScienceDirect]]}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dutta, Mahendra}}
[[Category:1931 births]]
[[Category:2020 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian public health doctors]]
[[Category:Ministry of Health and Family Welfare]]

Mahendra Dutta - Revision history

Dito at 05:56, 2 October 2023