Operation ASHA has developed many powerful innovations. Nobody has expressed it better than Aleem Walji, who was Director Innovation at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC when he visited Operation ASHA.
“Operation ASHA’s work involves all kinds of innovations. Their service provider is not a doctor, but a community health worker, which dramatically reduces the cost of treatment. They have non-descript clinics without signs that mention TB to reduce social stigma, which makes it safer, particularly for women, to seek treatment. They’ve also identified ways to increase treatment compliance for a disease that is traditionally difficult to treat because people don’t constantly take their medication for the necessary six to nine months. These are powerful innovations.
Researchers from Imperial College, London and University College, London, also state that Operation ASHA employs a unique treatment approach involving community based health providers and biometric data registration to support adherence in an article in the BMJ journal, Thorax. Even in in slum population, which has historically had very high risk of failure under traditional TB programs, Operation ASHA achieves the WHO target for treatment completion of 85% drug sensitive TB patients. Read the full paper here.