Kala Azar: Pilot of most cost–effective, wide–scale, short  and qualitative orientation training of ASHA workers  on Kala Azar in Bihar utilizing the existing government  resources and thereby reaching entire community

Dr Prashant Soni; Dr Ragini Mishra; Dr Prabhat Pandey; Ganga Kumar; Prashant Kumar

Volume : III, Issue : IX, September - 2013

Kala Azar: Pilot of most cost–effective, wide–scale, short and qualitative orientation training of ASHA workers on Kala Azar in Bihar utilizing the existing government resources and thereby reaching entire community

Dr Prashant Soni, Dr Ragini Mishra, Dr Prabhat Pandey, Ganga Kumar, Prashant Kumar

Abstract :

Kala Azar is a menace to Bihar with 33 out of 38 being endemic districts. As per WHO, 1/3rd cases of Kalaazar are reported from Bihar itself. Lack of community participation and under–reporting is one of the major obstacles towards Kala Azar Elimination. In order to address the above gaps, current orientation training was organized in all the blocks in district Jehanabad. ASHAs are the platforms between health and community and are responsible for identification of suspected Kala Azar cases. A pilot was done to provide an orientation training of ASHAs on Kala Azar including an attempt to assess the awareness of ASHAs towards Kala Azar case identification. The purpose of the training was to ensure the feasibility and quality of a short training on Kala Azar utilizing the existing government resources, with minimal utilization of external resources. Through this pilot, attempt was made to provide a short training which can be a role model and scaled up in the entire State. A plan was developed to train ASHAs using KTS (Kala Azar Technical Supervisors) and BCMs (Block Community Mobilizers) as trainers at the block level utilizing the event of ASHA Diwas, to be done in the whole district in all the blocks. It was finally found that this model is the most cost–effective, wide–scale and qualitative training and would be a useful model to be used in other health programmes. It can be scaled up in the entire State and can be used in case of any impending suspected outeaks.