CDRI holds health awareness and outreach program

Lucknow: Under the ageis of ‘Aspirational Districts Programme’ of NITI Ayog launched by the Prime Minister in January, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research affiliated Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) participated in it through a health awarenes program in one of the aspirational district, i.e. Bahraich. This district comes under the bottom 20 district with composit rank 96 out of 101 distircts. 

The ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme aims to quickly and effectively transform the selected districts. The Government is committed to raising the living standards of its citizens and ensuring inclusive growth for all. To enable optimum utilization of their potential, this program focusses closely on improving people’s ability to participate fully in the burgeoning economy. Health and Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources, Financial Inclusion & Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure are this programme’s core areas of focus..

CSIR-CDRI, regularly conducts awareness programme in villages on different disease areas related to health as per its mandate. For fulfill its social responsibilities this time CSIR-CDRI, Lucknow, stepped-out 120 kilometres to contribute in Aspirational Districts Programme. For this a Health Awareness Program and free health check-up camp was organized at village Gajadharpur, Block Fakrpur, Distt. Bahraich on World Diabetes Day on 14 November 2018 in association with CARE India to sensitize the villagers for health, education and cleanliness during Health Awareness Program and free health check-up.

A nine-member team of Doctor and Scientists including Dr Sharad Sharma, Dr Anil Gaikwad and Dr Sanjeev Yadav and research scholars Mr Salil Varshney, Ms Sanchita Gupta, Ms Shreesha, Ms Vineeta Mohd. Hasanain and Mr Sumit went to Gajadharpur village to sensitize the villagers for health, education and cleanliness and interacted with people about health awareness and did free health check-up.

Program Manager, Girls Education, Care India, UP, Dr Vandana Mishra and her team mate Ms Anjali and Mr Avinash arranged the interaction with villagers and contributed open heartedly for successfully organizing the event. More than 193 villagers along with 200 students participated and get benefitted by free health check-up and consultancy.

Team CDRI received overwhelming response from villagers. The objective of the program was to spread the awareness among the villagers about the life style related diseases i.e. diabetes and blood pressure. During the program Dr Sanjeev Yadav briefed about the objectives of this program and activities of CSIR-CDRI for pursuing affordable healthcare for all. Dr Gaikwad discussed in very interesting and easy way about the causes, symptoms, and basic precautions for prevention of diabetes.

Surprisingly, in this village also out of 193 persons, 10% persons were found with high blood sugar level and 25% people with high BP who were not aware of it before this program. Dr Sharad Sharma provided the free consultancy to them and suggested to contact as earliest as to their nearest CHC/PHC or Govt. Hospital for detailed diabetes check up. A small booklet for awareness about diabetes was also distributed to the participants for guidance.