The National Institute of Research in Tribal Health (NIRTH), Jabalpur is one of the 30 health research institutes working under the aegis of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), DHR, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. The NIRTH is the only publicly funded organization dedicated to research on health of tribes of the country. Considering health of aboriginals is of prime national importance, biomedical scientists of ICMR-NIRTH with diverse training and expertise, supported by 100-plus technical staff and several scientific staff of different time-bound research projects are putting tireless endeavor in collaboration with state government health officials, to not only diagnose and intervene different diseases prevalent in tribes, but also perform high-end biomedical research using modern tools to understand the mechanism of diseases and utilize the knowhow to devise novel methods of intervention and control. Apart from this, social scientists of ICMR-NIRTH are regularly involved in interacting with different tribal communities to campaign on the disease preventive measures, by which health issues can be mitigated before they emerge in a large way in communities.

• 1. Ongoing projects: a) Vector borne diseases (13) b) Communicable diseases (05) c) Non-communicable diseases (03) d) Genetic disorders (06) e) Virology & zoonotic diseases (05) 2. Publications: a. Tribal Health Bulletin (25 volumes) b. NIRTH Update (23). c. Annual Report (17) d. Proceedings Of National Symposium On Tribal Health e. Report Of The Expert Committee On Tribal Health f. NIRTH E-Letter 3. Tribal Health In Retrospect: 25 Years a) Section 1: Introduction, genetic disorders, vector borne diseases, communicable diseases and nutritional disorders view b) Section 2: Socio-economic and behavioral studies on health, other information (research projects/studies undertaken, regular activities, Ph.D students, training/ workshop/ symposium organized, facilities developed, publications and recent developments) view c) Section 3: Awards /fellowships/ foreign visits, directors/ officer-in-charge (1984-2009), distinguished visitors to the centre, recent staff position and research articles published. 4. ICMR-NIRTH conducts research on health issues of the tribal populations of the country, including nutritional disorders, common communicable and non-communicable diseases, environmental health problems, etc. 5. Scientists of ICMR-NIRTH regularly help the state health departments in diagnosis, planning, monitoring and evaluation of tribal health and other health developmental programs in tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and also in training health functionaries of these states. 6. The NIRTH works on diseases that are mostly prevalent in tribes, such as malaria, tuberculosis, haemoglobinopathies, hypertension, filariasis, fluorosis, dengue, chikungunya, and zoonotic diseases that are of importance to tribal populations. 7. The NIRTH also takes up disease outbreak surveillance and research in tribal regions and help the state government to control such situations. Apart from biomedical research, scientists of ICMR-NIRTH regularly provide trainings to state heal professionals on modern techniques for diagnosis and diseases interventions. 8. In addition, research on socio-economic, demographic and cultural aspects of the tribal population also have enabled in defining measures for disease prevention and control. 9. Apart from its presence in Jabalpur, ICMR-NIRTH also has a field unit at Keylong, Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, located at 10,100 feet above mean sea level (MSL) to conduct biomedical and social science research on health issues of the Himalayan tribes.