Annual Report 2007

The fight against TB in Kolkata/India
New approaches in fighting tuberculosis in slums
Health workers of DAHW supervise private healers while they regularly distribute drugs and refer suspected cases (PPM: „private public mix“). DAHW started this new project in 2007.
The PPM-project is managed by a doctor from the office of DAHW in Kolkata. To date 48 health workers have been trained, who are responsible for almost 1.000 quacks (healers) in the slums of Kolkata.
444 new TB patients were detected by this project in 2007. The rate of defaulters has decreased from around 20 to two per cent on average.
This project was supported by DAHW for the first time in 2007 with an amount of 29.580 Euros. For 2008 an amount of 19.327 Euros has been foreseen in the budget. Moreover, providing the income from donations allows it, it is planned to apply the very successful principle of „PPM“ to other cities in India too.

DAHW health worker Fahim with his youngest patient Musula in front of her mother’s hut