India, Jan. 26 -- PUNE The Maharashtra forest department has launched an initiative to build a real-time surveillance model for detecting zoonotic diseases among bird sanctuary workers and residents in the vicinity of the wetlands.

The initiative 'Building a surveillance model for detecting zoonotic spillover in increased bird-human interaction settings', which commenced in January this year, will be held along with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Institute of Virology, Pune (NIV), and Symbiosis International University.

As part of the initiative, a sensitisation program was organised at Vanbhavan on January 22.

NR Praveen, chief conservator of forests, Pune circle, said, "The sensitisation programme helps in cr...