More laurels for PGIMER as Prof. Digambar Behera wins the distinct honour of “ATS Public Service Award-2021” by American Thoracic Society

Dr Digambar Behera, Senior Professor and Head, Department of Pulmonary Medicine at PGIMER wins the distinct honur of being awarded with the “ATS Public Service Award-2021”- by the American Thoracic Society. Although it will not be possible to host the awards presentation during an in-person conference this year (May 2021), the ATS would like to showcase the Respiratory Health Awardees on the ATS conference website and on the ATS 2021 virtual platform. The Public Service Award recognizes contributions to public health related to improvement of indoor and outdoor air quality, eradication of tobacco usage, prevention of lung disease, improved management of communicable respiratory diseases, or improvement in the ethical delivery, and access to healthcare in areas related to lung diseases, sleep disorders, or critical care. There is a special emphasis on efforts that have the potential to eliminate gender, racial, ethnic or economic disparities.
Prof. Digambar Behera is a Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, an Institute of National importance with over 40 years of standing, has worked as Director of the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases, New Delhi. He was also the Dean, Research at his Institute. He is an acclaimed Respiratory Physician par excellence, teacher, and researcher distinguished with exceptional achievements and contributions of innovative nature in the field of Respiratory Medicine and has rendered immense service to the public. He was one of the pioneers to start DM super-specialty course (Post-Doctoral) in Pulmonary and Critical Care in India. He had headed a State-of-the-Art Department, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Research & Capacity Building in Chronic Respiratory Diseases. This department under his guidance carried out research on various areas of Pulmonology. He is involved in developing guidelines for managing chronic respiratory diseases like COPD and Asthma in a resource limited setting. His contribution in the field of Clinical research with special reference to Tuberculosis and Lung Cancer is enormous.
Besides these key areas, his other areas research includes Indoor Air Pollution, ILD, COPD and asthma. Over the past years, Dr Behera has been involved in high-quality clinical and research work which has led to improved management and understanding of pathogenesis of several diseases, and development of newer therapeutic options. His work on Indoor air pollution in the 80’s and 90’s bring out focus on women and child lung health. Based on his contributions in the field of Medicine he is awarded “PADMSHRI” by the Govt of India in 2020.
Dr Behera has over 580 research publications with 30 National and 8 International Awards. He has authored two Text books on Respiratory diseases and other books on TB, asthma and lung cancer.
As Director of the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases having main focus on the clinical and basic research work on tuberculosis he contributed immensely to the field. They include a BSL-III TB laboratory (National Reference Laboratory for India), 24 bedded MDR-TB ward with infection control facilities, RNTCP (Revised National TB Control/Elimination Program) and DOTS-PLUS implementation at community level, pushing TB research in India, with National and international collaborations His published work in the field of tuberculosis includes epidemiology, newer diagnosis of tuberculosis, therapy, treatment and basic research that has immense national and international impact in the context of TB control. His main contribution in tuberculosis includes epidemiology, establishment and validation of newer and quicker diagnostic facilities, treatment modalities and research in the field. He is in various policy making bodies of the Central TB Division of India giving his technical outputs He is one of the motivating factors for the involvement of Medical Colleges into the RNTCP. As Chairman of the National Task Force for involvement of Medical Colleges into the NTEP since 2012 he is instrumental in persuading over 500 Medical Colleges of India to be involved in the program. This is a unique association of the Medical Colleges in a Public Health Program. Under his stewardship, a number of Operational Research work on TB took shape that includes Short course chemotherapy for DR-TB, INHmono/polyresistance and introduction of Bedaquilline and Delemanid and many newer diagnostics that includes indigenously made TruNAT.
Currently as Chairman of the Expert Committee of the TB Vaccine trial (The largest new TB Vaccine Trial in the world) undertaken by the Indian Council of Medical Research TB Consortium. He is one of the experts and Technical Advisor for the End TB strategy to make India TB free by 2025. His contributions to tuberculosis has been recognized by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases with Karel Styblo prize – 2009 (Public Health) and IUATLD prize in 1990 for his outstanding Scientific contribution in the field.
Dr Behera is a pioneer who has worked on lung cancer since the 1980’s in India highlighting certain peculiarities of the disease in Indian context. To spread the awareness of lung cancer in India, he formed the Indian Society for Study of Lung Cancer as its Founder President . Many of his students are practicing lung cancer all throughout India. The PGI team under his leadership got the Best Lung Cancer Care Team Award by the International Association for Study of Lung Cancer in 2019.
He initiated the first Lung Transplant Program in the public Sector in India while heading the department.
Currently he is the President of the Indian Chest Society.
Dr Behera is currently re-employed on extension basis by the ACC, Govt of India for a period of 3 years at PGI till 10th May 21 after his retirement in March 2018.
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