Former city health officer P. Kuganantham no more

Former Chennai Corporation health officer Dr. Kuganantham, known for expertise in public health, passes away after prolonged illness.

Former city health officer of Chennai Corporation P. Kuganantham passed away on Monday. He was 67 and had been ailing for a while.

As tributes poured in from persons associated with him, many recounted his expertise in public health and contributions to the prevention and control of infectious diseases.

SIMS Hospital where Dr. Kuganantham served as head and senior consultant of Social and Preventive Medicine, in a statement said, he passed away after a prolonged battle with ill-health.

Dr. Kuganantham, a native of Cheyyur, completed his medical education from Government Stanley Medical College and Madras Medical College. He entered the Chennai Corporation service in 1987, and later went on to head the Communicable Diseases Hospital (CDH), Tondiarpet.

In an article published in The Hindu — “Learning about how the city built its health infra” — on December 25, 2023, he had shared many of his experiences, including on how he introduced a round-the-clock outpatient one-rupee clinic for residents of slums in north Chennai and in making ‘vettiyans’ (burial ground workers) into permanent employees of the Chennai Corporation as burial ground assistants.

During the cholera outbreak in Chennai during 1992-93, it was his team that identified a new strain which he named Madras strain-non-01 0139. Dr. Kuganantham became the City Health Officer in 2007, and dengue cases between 2009 and 2014 saw him bringing in sector-wise individual house control measures during which workers visited 500 houses a week, to focus on clearing breeding sources. He had shared how the city’s slums are close to his heart and raised the need to improve slums without relocating the people.

K. Kolandaswamy, former director of public health and preventive medicine, recalled his association with Dr. Kuganantham from 1988. “He was an expert in infectious disease control. I was doing my post graduation in public health in MMC and went to him for training in infectious disease control when he was heading CDH. He was an expert in the prevention and control as well as case management of cholera and diarrhoeal diseases. He was an expert in vaccine preventable diseases as well as dengue,” he said.