Through rain and floods, Assam’s community workers battle pandemic


Floods might be as old as Assam, but fighting a pandemic in knee-deep water is a whole new challenge for even the most seasoned health worker.

It is the wind that has helped Pratima Barman plan her day as an accredited social health activist (ASHA) in Assam’s Dibrugarh district for seven years now.

In the sapori (island) village where Barman lives, a strong gusty wind, coupled with the sight of a brimming Brahmaputra, signals the annual deluge. On such days, the 35-year-old will switch her crisp whilte-and-blue ASHA sari for an older, well-worn one. She will slip on her washed-out rubber chappals, carefully balance her bag on her head, and set out. And then, wading through waters, Barman will call on the pregnant and the sick, the old and the young, and—as she has done over the last three months—seek out those who might be showing signs of a fever, a cold, or a cough. In the evening, she will wash up, sanitising everything from her watch to her bicycle, before entering her house.

Floods might be as old as Assam, but fighting a pandemic in knee-deep water is a whole new challenge for even the most seasoned health worker.

Barman, and her colleagues, are the foundation of the ‘Assam Community Surveillance Program’ — coordinated by the National Health Mission (NHM) — which does door-to-door checks in rural Assam, to find those with symptoms of the novel coronavirus, as well as malaria and Japanese Encephalitis. It is an exercise that has covered more than 30,000 villages so far with an army of ASHAs, anganwadi workers (AWWs), auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs), multi-purpose workers (MPWs), surveillance inspectors, lab technicians, and doctors, spread out across the state during a debilitating flood that, since May, has affected more than 26 lakh people in 29 districts, and claimed 42 lives. Twenty-four have died due to landslides triggered by heavy rain.

This article was originally published in The Indian Express in July 2020. Full article here.