Date: 18 April, 2022 (Monday)

Time: 10:00am to 11:30am

Venue: Conference room, DGHS (New building)

1. This Technical Committee Meeting was chaired by Honourable DG Sir.

2. Director IEDCR, Prof. Dr. Tahmina Shirin started the meeting with kind permission of DG Sir with a very short briefing about CHAMPS and then a formal introduction of everyone of the meeting.

3. Dr. Shams, Principal Investigator of CHAMPS, icddr,b presented the overview of the surveillance to the committee in his presentation. During presentation honourable DG Sir suggested- to clarify the term ‘Congenital Infection’ in still birth cases and asked to correlate this with mother if possible ( by testing her sample according to complaints).He also suggested to consult with the team of CDC about this naming and procedure.

4. Dr. Mahbub from IEDCR presented the update about ‘Data to Action’ part of the CHAMPS activities.

5. Line Director, MNCAH commented after completion of the presentation that if we can execute the existing strategy minutely then many of the causes responsible for still birth, neonatal death and under 5 child mortality rate can be minimized.

6. ADG Planning and Research, Prof. Sabrina Flora suggested incorporate the findings from DSS, Behavioural Science with MITS. Then it will be more comprehensive to others and helpful for planning, policy development.

7. DG Sir suggested –a) To ensure the proper sample collection procedure/technique in every steps as it is a very sensitive thing to the families as well as to the community. Portable ultrasound machine can be used to locate the liver, lungs, heart etc. Fore bone marrow collection Tibial Tuberosity can be considered as an alternate of Iliac Crest as Tibial Tuberosity is more prominent. b) To cross check the results before dissemination and be sure about the naming. c) The social taboo which had to overcome for conducting this type of sensitive surveillance during dissemination may come in the presentation.

8. Ms. Morsheda from BRAC asked to find out the causes of death in under5 children in the society. She told that only still birth had been highlighted in this surveillance. Dr. Shams said that most of the under5 deaths occur in the community and not come to the hospital. That’s why these were missed in most of the cases. To find out the causes of death in under5 children, social or verbal autopsy can be a better option she said.

9. Ms. Jannat from UNICEF said that it would enrich the surveillance if some components related to improve the quality of ANC were added.

10. Dr. Shams expected that Line Director MNCAH and his team might help to find out the exact points where the quality of services or facilities could be improved.

11. DG Sir suggested to extend the study site to some other areas, as because one site cannot be representative for the whole country in a surveillance. He suggested some remote areas in Sunamganj district ( Dhirai, Shalda, Tahirpur, Dharmapasha etc.), Kurigram (Roumari), Satkhira etc. where health facilities are not satisfactory and people are very poor. Then DG Sir ended the meeting