Operation Asha

Context

• Tuberculosis (TB) claims three lives every minute globally - one life every minute in India alone, where 3.5 million of the world's 13 million TB patients live
• TB is associated with a social stigma: children drop out of school due to their own or their parents’ infection, while women are abandoned by their families
• Although easily treatable with limited resources, a scarcity of reachable treatment centers results in high default rates, causing relapse and increased drug resistance

Solution

Operation Asha utilizes existing infrastructure such as temples and kiosks in order to establish a dense network of treatment centers which provide TB patients with their medication. The costs of USD 25 per patient are covered by the WHO. Being run at high-traffic community locations, patients have only a 10-minute walk to the nearest center. Extended opening hours allow patients to integrate the visit to the center into their daily routine and thus successfully complete the 6-month treatment.

Impact depth

Operation Asha has lowered the default rate of the treatments by 40-60 times, increased detection of TB patients by 80%, achieved a treatment success rate of 90% and reduced the death rate to 3%.