Treating 3500 Poor TB Patients in India & Cambodia

Dear Friend,

There is lots of exciting news! The Honourable Health Minister of India, Mr JP Nadda, and the Honourable Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh inaugurated our project and eCompliance last week, in an inspiring and spell binding ceremony held 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 civilization in tiny hamlets scattered on the mountain sides. The Health Minister Mr JP 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 motor cycles 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 atleast 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.

In the inauguration ceremony, Mr Nadda and the Honourable Chief Minister took fingerprints of the first patient found by Operation ASHA in Himachal and initiated him on TB treatment. In his resounding speech, Mr. 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 Shelly Batra to write a blog on the occasions of on World TB Day. Please click here to access her blog.                                                                    

OpASHA media mentions: 

• Dr Shelly Batra was one of the 1500 people (out of 45,000 from across the globe) to be selected to attend the Global Entrepreneur Summit-2017 where honorable Prime Minister Mr. Modi and Ivanka Trump were the Chief Guests.
• Network Capital interviews Dr Shelly Batra, who gives career advice for mentoring young students. Click here to read her interview

Conferences:

• Our Co-Founder and CEO, Sandeep Ahuja was invited to speak at a panel discussion at the HITLAB Innovators Summit 2018 held at IIT Delhi.
• Our Co-Founder and President, Dr Shelly Batra was invited to speak at a facilitated panel discussion in the final plenary of the 5th annual global forum on TB Vaccines.
• Our CTO, Sonali Batra gave a talk at a machine learning conference on 18th March titled ‘Operation ASHA- Using data analytics and machine learning to save lives’.
• Sonali Batra also presented a poster on eCompliance biometric software in the 5th annual global forum on TB Vaccines held at the Taj in New Delhi.

You can follow OpASHA's CEO Mr. Sandeep Ahuja (@sandeepahuja12) and President Dr. Shelly Batra (@shells1857) on Twitter. You can also follow OpASHA on Facebook and Twitter.

Donation Utilization:

This quarter Operation ASHA raised $ 179.55 which will be used to provide food and other necessary day to day items for the poorest patients in India and Cambodia. 

Operation ASHA has reached this level and is taking steps toward a TB free world because of you. Please extend your support one more time. Please go to Donate Now to make a tax deductible donation to save the lives of disadvantaged patients.

Thank you.