The National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) was established on July 30, 1963, subsequent to the decision of the Government of India to expand and reorganise the activities of the Malaria Institute of India (MII) which remained in existence under different names since its inception in 1909.The reorganised Institute was established to develop a national centre for teaching and research in various disciplines of epidemiology and control of communicable diseases.The Institute was envisaged to act as a centre par excellence for providing multi disciplinary and integrated expertise in the control of communicable disease. The Institute was also entrusted the task of developing reliable rapid economic epidemialogical tools which could be effectively applied in the field for the control of communicable diseases.