Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar Wiki, Age, Wife, Family, Biography & More – WikiBio
Raman Gangakhedkar is a distinguished Indian scientist who is Scientist “G” and Head of the Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases Unit at ICMR in New Delhi. Dr. Gangakhedkar became the face of ICMR when he appeared regularly on TV screens to brief the country on the planning and implementation of the COVID-19 testing protocol.
Wiki/Biography
Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar was born in 1962 (Age 58; same as 2020) in Mumbai, Maharashtra. He has been very curious since he was a child, and he has developed a scientific temper since he was a child. He completed his studies at Zila Parishad School in Marathi. He completed the MBBS at the Government Medical College of Aurangabad. Dr. Gangakhedkar also completed a one-year Master of Public Health training program at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
family
Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar belongs to the Marathi-speaking family. Not much information is available about his family.
Profession
Dr. Gangakhedkar is a distinguished clinician and epidemiologist known for his active involvement in the development of HIV management guidelines and policy development for HIV/AIDS control programs at the national level. After getting his MBBS, he started his career as a pediatrician. In 1989, he jumped into HIV/AIDS; at a time when this terrible disease was no less than a stigma in India. Later, when the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) was established in 1993, he moved from Mumbai to Pune.
The face of India’s AIDS control programme
With his brilliant and clear approach, Dr. Gangakhedkar has become the face of India’s AIDS control program. Shortly after joining NARI in 1993, he began emphasizing community involvement in controlling this horrific disease. In an interview, explaining the major milestones in the management of HIV/AIDS in India, he said,
Community participation in decision-making has proven to be the most important game changer. In addition to community mobilization, it involves sex worker, MSM and IDU representatives sitting with experts and speaking out on policy and planning strategies to reach them. “
Another important step, according to Dr. Gangakhedkar, was the national investment in the Prevention of Parent-to-Child Transmission (PPTCT) program for mainstream populations in 1999, which paved the way for free antiviral drugs for the first time in the country’s history. Retroviral therapy in HIV-infected patients. Dr. Gangakhedkar was instrumental in launching the PPTCT programme in India. He said,
I realize there is no way to make the system responsive unless targeting a mainstream population. I think PPTCT was one of the key areas for mainstreaming because at that time (late 1990s) it was possible to prevent mother-to-child transmission by providing short-term zidovudine. I submitted a proposal to the Government of India, also supported by UNICEF, and thus started a feasibility study in 11 centres for a zidovudine-based Bangkok regimen, which was later replaced by the more feasible single-dose nevirapine program to replace. And in 2001 launched the PPTCT project in India. “
When Dr. Gangakhedkar dabbled in HIV/AIDS, there were no treatments available in India, and he was often frustrated by just counseling patients, nothing more. But he was determined and devised his own way to find a solution to this terrible disease. He has conducted extensive research and sought to gain first-hand information from HIV infection hotspots. He said,
As a typical Indian male from a conservative Indian society, I was initially embarrassed when I started going to the red light district to promote HIV control awareness. I don’t know who sex workers are and how they live. But over time, I saw the problems they faced up close. It made me understand what social exclusion is and made me more committed to my cause. “
With these positive initiatives on the part of the government, Dr Gangakhedkar affirmed the eradication of AIDS from India by 2030, saying,
Only by improving the quality of services and strengthening our strategy will we be able to achieve the last 90 UNAIDS goals of maintaining viral load suppression to eliminate HIV/AIDS. “
What ICMR looks like during COVID-19
After a long tenure as Director of the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), Dr. Gangakhedkar joined the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in New Delhi as Scientist “G” and Head of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases. He became the face of ICMR when he appeared on TV screens to brief the country on the COVID-19 situation at the National Media Centre in New Delhi. In one such media briefing, he justified a lockdown in the country, he said, stressing the need for people to have basic medical awareness,
If I ask any very literate person how many chambers your heart has, or do you know where your spleen is – one of the most powerful organs you know – the spleen is one of the most useful organs, Protects your body very powerfully and it is part of what we call the reticuloendothelial system. People will not be able to answer. Now, if most literate people know very little about health, and if you have to teach a healthy lifestyle to every ordinary citizen of this country who may or may not go to school, he’s probably just functionally Literacy. There’s nothing you can do but try to enforce a lockdown, trying to make sure people understand social distancing.
Facts/trivia
- He has expertise in the clinical epidemiology of HIV infection, mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection, management of HIV infection, and chemokine receptors.
- In 1996, he received a Fogarty Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
- In 2020, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India for his contributions in the field of medical research. After receiving the honor, Dr. Gangakhedkar said,
I was able to do research on SIDs that infect women and children. I feel like our hard work in honor of Padma Shri is being noticed somewhere. This can only happen with the support of organisations working to raise HIV awareness. ”
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