India

**Aziz Haniffa profiles CCGHE's Dr. Amita Gupta, in a special article for the India Abroad.  Dr. Gupta is revolutionizing the understanding and treatment of a plethora of deadly diseases.  Read the full article.**

With a population of over one billion, India is the second largest country in the world. While India represents 16% of the world’s population, notably globally it has the largest absolute burden of tuberculosis, third largest absolute burden of HIV, and the second largest burden of diabetes  In 2009 the World Health Organization reported that India's average life expectancy is still low at 65.

 Burden of infectious diseases:

Despite substantial gains in increased life expectancy over the past 50 years, communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, pneumococcal disease, kala-azar, filariasis, dengue and leprosy are not controlled. UNAIDS India reports that India now holds the third largest absolute number of HIV infections in the world, following South Africa and Nigeria.  In May 2012, the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) released the Technical Report: India HIV Estimates 2010. Under the US President's Emergency Plan Emergence Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) India receives funding to support HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care programs (read PEPFAR fiscal year 2011 operation plan). Based on the latest estimate from WHO, India also has the largest absolute burden of tuberculosis.

 Burden of chronic diseases:

India also has a large burden of chronic diseases with the world second largest number of diabetics of 61.3 million based on the latest estimate of the International Diabetes Federation and a large burden of cardiovascular diseases and a double burden of undernutrition and obesity.  Read the Noncommunicable Diseases Country Profiles 2011 on India.

 CCGHE involvement in India

The Johns Hopkins CCGHE has a successful history of implementing projects in India. Over the past two decades, CCGHE faculty Dr. Bollinger, Dr. Gupta and others have been collaborating with Indian governmental and private institutions on HIV projects and research capacity building. More recently the focus is now also addressing issues of TB, bacterial drug resistance, malnutrition, and maternal-child health issues.

In May, 2007, Dr. Robert Bollinger met with The Honorable Dr. APJ Kalam, President of India in a Telemedicine Case Discussion Program between the CCGHE and the IIT Kharagpur  (read more).

In January, 2012, US Secretary of Health and Human Services,  Kathleen Sebelius, visited the JHU-BJMC CTU Research Collaboration.

HIV Case Discussion: Each month, the CCGHE hosts an HIV Case Discussion co-sponsored by Byramji Jeejeebhoy Medical College (BJMC) and National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), D Y Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, and other India-based institutions. These sessions are also webcasted and can be accessed live.  Please visit  India HIV Case Discussions page  to view these and other cases from this ongoing, monthly program.

Johns Hopkins Division of Infectious Diseases Grand Rounds: Grand rounds are currently  live webcast to centers in India, and are recorded and archived for later viewing.  We plan to develop and deploy many more timely and relevant distance education courses in the future, including the development of an HIV POC-IT guide for India.

Other activities:

• An in-country "train-the-trainer" nursing program entitled, "Nursing Training Curriculum: HIV Practice and Reducing Stigma" for HIV/AIDS care.
• A telemedicine training program, "Principles of Antiretroviral Therapy in HIV-Infected Patients," presented by Johns Hopkins faculty with a series of clinical case-based lectures and interactive discussions
• A series of HIV/AIDS clinical training lectures videocast to BJ Medical College in Pune, India.  This 8-week program, "HIV/AIDS Practice in Resource Limited Settings"  allowed Johns Hopkins University faculty to provide an overview of clinical care of the HIV-infected to front-line physicians in India.
• Physicians in Maharastra, India began viewing lectures online over a ten-week period.  They periodically participated in scheduled live question & answer sessions with experts from Johns Hopkins University. Topics included epidemiology, clinical assessment, opportunistic infections, antiretroviral therapy and managing complications.
• A course of "Management of Adult HIV/AIDS in Resource-Limited Countries".
• An interactive HIV/AIDS clinic with doctors from Hopkins and from three different Indian facilities. The program connected eight U.S. institutions with three in India. (read more )