What happened
The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda, will lay the foundation stone of the ICMR Centre for High Altitude Medicine and Public Health Research at Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district, Himachal Pradesh, on 11 July 2026. The centre is being set up by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
It will upgrade ICMR’s existing field station at Keylong into a full-fledged, multidisciplinary hub for research, innovation and capacity building focused on India’s high-altitude and climate-sensitive regions.
Why Keylong matters
Keylong sits in a high-altitude Himalayan environment with extreme climate, difficult terrain and seasonal accessibility constraints. The release highlights that this geography creates distinct public health challenges related to disease patterns, healthcare access and emergency response.
The location also offers year-round access to high-altitude and tribal populations in a strategically important border region, which can support long-term cohort studies and field research on environmental determinants of health.
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