2017 ICT4D Conference

India is the country with the highest burden of Tuberculosis (TB). WHO claims, that there are ‘3 million missing TB patients’ worldwide that remain hidden in their homes, out of which 1/3rd are in India. No facility or service for detection and treatment is able to reach them. These people continue to infect others, as one TB patient is capable of infecting 10-12 others annually.

eDetection is the screening and identification of persons who may have come into contact with an infected pulmonary positive TB patient. The software works in two modes – Contact Tracing and Active Case Finding. In both the modes a TB suspect goes through a set of questions, if the answer to any of the questions is yes, the health worker enters the contact details of the TB suspect. The system then keeps track of the suspect through each stage of diagnosis namely – Sputum Result Pending, Antibiotics Medication, Repeat Sputum Result Pending, X-ray Result Pending. The diagnosis of a suspect is termed as ‘Completed’ if the diagnostic results are indicative of TB. If diagnostic results are negative the suspect is ‘Archived’ into the system. This whole process lets health workers realize the contact tracing methodology more efficiently. The application being a stable decision based algorithm can be used easily by the trained health workers from the community where the prevalence rate of TB is high without any supervision. The app has also been upgraded for detection of mental illness and depression to assess the mental health of TB patients and their families.

The Contact Tracing application works on the Android platform. The technology was developed in house at Operation ASHA. The eDetection project has been implemented in 31 centers of OpASHA, spread across 4 cities/tribal areas (Hubli, Bhubaneshwar, Dabra and Ghati Gaon) in 3 states (Karnataka,Madhya Pradesh and Orissa). All of these states are high burden areas with a prevalence rate ranging from 150-260 per lakh population.

In conclusion this is an effective & cost-efficient model that helps to curb the spread of tuberculosis.