Global health leaders award ASHA workers

[GS Paper 2 – Govt. Policies and Interventions]

Context – India’s ASHA workers among six recipients of the Global Health leaders award at World Health Assembly.

The one million ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers, who are at the forefront of healthcare delivery in India, have received the Global Health Leaders Award-2022 in the backdrop of the ongoing 75th World Health Assembly.

Key Developments

• ASHA (which means hope in Hindi) are more than 1 million female volunteers in India, honored for the crucial role in linking the community with the health system, to ensure those living in rural poverty can access primary healthcare services, as shown throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

• WHO has said that ASHAs worked to provide:

1. Maternal care
2. Immunization for children against vaccine-preventable diseases; community health care
3. Treatment for hypertension and tuberculosis
4. Core areas of health promotion for nutrition, sanitation, and healthy living

• The ceremony for the awards, which were established in 2019, was part of the live-streamed high-level opening session of the 75th World Health Assembly.

• The WHO Director-General Dr.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has announced six Global Health Leaders Awards.

• The Indian Prime Minister has expressed happiness that the entire team of ASHA workers have been conferred the WHO Director-General’s Global Health Leaders’ Award.

About ASHA

• ASHA stands for Accredited Social Health Activist.

• ASHA is a trained female community health activist. Selected from the community itself and accountable to it, the ASHA will be trained to work as an interface between the community and the public health system.

• The role of an ASHA is that of a community level care provider. This includes a mix of tasks: facilitating access to health care services, building awareness about health care entitlements especially amongst the poor and marginalized, promoting healthy behaviors and mobilizing for collective action for better health outcomes.

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