Indian-American doctor’s formula gives expert AIDS care in rural areas

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

AHMEDABAD: When AIDS first struck, patients simply died as there were no drugs to treat it. Now, drugs bring down the spread of virus but still a large section of rural India is left untreated. The reasons: High costs of treatment and travelling.

In rural areas, high cost of travelling to nearest urban health centre puts patients off treatment. Realizing this, India born Dr Sanjeev Arora, a hepatologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, USA, has developed a programme to help rural clinicians provide care on par with specialists.

He volunteers to spend two hours a week with health workers until they are ready to manage their own cases. Dr Arora has developed a model called ECHO programme that involves videoconferencing to facilitate weekly case-based training and patient tracking.

Source: Times of India (link opens in a new window)

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