Union Health Minister, JP Nadda, & Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh inaugurate Operation ASHA’s work
The Union Health Minister, JP Nadda, and the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh recently inaugurated the eCompliance project of Operation Asha in Kullu.
Kullu is located in a breathtakingly beautiful valley in the Himalayas, surrounded by majestic mountains and ever-flowing rivers. But mountains are not about beauty alone. TB patients here live miles away from civilisation in tiny hamlets scattered on the mountainsides. During the inauguration ceremony, Nadda pointed out to the Chief Minister of the State that eight of the thirty worst effected TB districts in India are in Himachal Pradesh alone. “Our work is challenging, as finding these patients is a gigantic task. We have health workers on motorcycles who drive as far as it is possible on difficult, narrow, ill-kept roads, and then scramble on foot up the mountains to serve TB patients in their homes. We are serving a population of 1 million such people and hope to detect and treat at least 3,000 patients a year. This takes the total population served by Operation ASHA, for TB, to 5 million in India, and over 10 million worldwide”, informs Dr Shelly Batra, Co-founder, Operation Batra.
Nadda and the Chief Minister took fingerprints of the first patient found by Operation ASHA in Himachal and initiated him on TB treatment. In his resounding speech, Nadda spoke enthusiastically about eCompliance and stated that his target is to expand eCompliance further in the State. We are privileged and humbled by their support.
Also, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, invited Dr Batra to write a blog on the occasions of on World TB Day.