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Supreme Court Directs States to Declare Cancer as Notifiable Disease

Kumari Sonali

Supreme Court Directs States to Declare Cancer as Notifiable Disease:

The Supreme Court has directed the 19 States and Union Territories that have not yet done so to consider declaring cancer a “notifiable disease”.

  • At present, 17 of India’s 36 States and UTs have already notified cancer, following the recommendations of a Parliamentary Standing Committee.
  • The direction came in the backdrop of a Public interest Litigation (PIL) highlighting deficiencies in the ICMR’s National Cancer Registry Programme, which reportedly covers only about 10% of India’s population, with rural coverage as low as 1%.
  • Declaring cancer notifiable would make reporting of diagnosed cancer cases mandatory, helping governments maintain systematic data, strengthen surveillance, promote early detection and improve planning for treatment and care.
  • Notifiable diseases are those legally mandated to be reported to public health authorities under laws like the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. The primary framework for surveillance is the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), managed by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
  • Once a disease is declared notifiable, all healthcare providers (public and private), hospitals, and medical practitioners are legally obligated to report suspected, probable, and confirmed cases to designated authorities, ensuring comprehensive data collection.
  • While lists vary state wise, diseases commonly declared notifiable across many states include Tuberculosis, Dengue, Malaria, Cholera, Hepatitis, Measles, Leptospirosis, and Polio. Covid-19 was universally declared notifiable during the pandemic.
  • Recent examples of newly notified diseases include snakebite in 2024 and human rabies in 2025.
  • India lacks a single, uniform national list of notifiable diseases. The authority to declare a disease notifiable rests primarily with state/UT (with legislative assembly) governments, leading to variations in the list of diseases across different states and union territories.
  • The International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) under the World Health Organization (WHO) are a legally binding international law that require memeber countries to inform the WHO about public health risks or events that may have international health implications, irrespective of their origin or source.