What we want to do
Our past three years experience of treating filariasis patients shows that, by involving patients themselves in the programme, the same module may create wider impact. To achieve this, we are building a well–supported central training centre with adequate resources to train the patients, nurses’ doctors and NGOs from endemic rural areas. Those trained will form and develop local resource pools in each endemic area. We will also develop strong communication pathways to monitor and implementation in each endemic pocket through telemedicine and video conferencing. Local AYUSH doctors will be trained for supervision and guidance.

Locally, 10,000 elephantiasis patients would be empowered in Kasaragod within a period of 5 years. Entrepreneurs among them would be encouraged to take up the role of peer educators and to form self help groups of filariasis patients in their locality. They would be provided the required training for the same during their stay in IAD for their own treatment. In turn these patients would transfer the treatment know how to their peer filariasis patients in their own locality.

We intend to establish eight collaborating satellite centers across the country to treat the patients in their respective regions. This will be done with the help of local community partnership– patient support peer organizations or NGOs already in the health sector.

What we have and what is needed to make this dream come true
The work of constructing a 30 bedded rural hospital and training centre is already underway this has to be developed as a centre of excellence to train as many people as possible. The budget layout for this project is 1.50crore .We own a 12000 square feet land in the locality and were able to generate one third of the budget .We need a charity investment of 95 lacks to make this possible. Using non–technical skills and resources available to patients’ families and neighbors, our home therapy treatment is replicable in any country, however resource poor.700 patients are in waiting list to take this treatment is the evidence for demand for the service. We have successfully tested the PSPG concept in Kerala as a pilot programme.

How we did this – Methodology
Once a patient has attended for counseling, and decided to take treatment, their family is encouraged to join them for a short hospital/out patient therapy schedule during which they undergo treatment, and are trained to apply the treatment protocol correctly themselves at home after discharge.

Back home, they are encouraged to form local patient support groups, together with other patients, family members and friends. Initially, patient support groups work closely with IAD. Later they develop a network of local professional/institutional support for the minimum medical requirements of the programme. IAD’s integrative treatment programme requires only occasional visits to the doctor’s clinic. Most components involve traditional skin care needing few skills. Though compression bandages are the most expensive part of treatment, tying them is a self–help technique.

Most elephantiasis patients are in rural India disabled by their swollen legs. They also suffer repeated, additional fever episodes. Many were once their families’ bread winners. Increasing immobility caused by swollen, ugly legs & recurrent fevers makes them an economic burden. Our treatment reduces oedema, often allowing return to work. Currently an estimated 31 million Indians are infected, 23 million manifesting gross symptoms. The need for our programme is huge.

Results
Results calculated by Two Step Cluster analysis. It is an automatic analysis done by SPSS 16 when it considers that data available is large and sufficient. SPSS 16 classified data revealed 343 limbs as small, 146 limbs as large, 23 limbs as ‘Outlier cluster’ (medical records are maintained as number of limbs). We have not yet recognized a treatment failure in these 512 lymphodematous limbs as long as patients are concordant with the treatment program. The limbs gradually revert back to their non–treatment stage if they stop integrative treatment. The adverse events observed included allergic contact dermatitis to nalpamaradi oil used for IMLD in five limbs. About 10% of patients developed scattered sterile pustules over the massaged limbs. We observed that one third of patients discontinued the treatment after about nine months of initiation into therapy.

Analysis using SPSS 16 showed the volume reduction of 22.3% on 14th day, 30.8% on 45th day and 41.6% on 90th day of treatment for large limbs, for small limbs it was 11.1%, 24.3% and 31.8% respectively.

Recognition and Certificates
We have won the International Society of Lymphology President’s Prize, 2005, and a Gold Medal for our work on Ayurveda as Evidence Based Medicine, 2006. That year, the ICMR recognized our protocol as a “New Medical Development of India”. The Health Department of the Canadian Government has published our protocol on their official website (www.lymphovenous–canada). The official organs of International Society of Lymphology (USA) & International lymphodema framework (UK) have praised our treatment in their editorial.

For peer review we conducted three national level seminars, in which 125 former patients demonstrated the entire protocol to expert delegates from various national and international governmental and non–governmental scientific institutions.

Our treatment is a successful example of the Innovative Care for Chronic Conditions.

Sustainability plan
To further reduce therapy costs, we shall train traditional medical practitioners to prepare medicines and establish a nursing consultancy service, previously unknown in India, to train nurses to treat neglected chronic diseases like LF (nurses are too thinly spread out).

When former patients start treating others, it becomes self–sustaining. Successful implementation would persuade the educationists to include the same in the teaching curriculum in India’s 210 Ayurveda Medical Colleges and numerous paramedical & nursing colleges. It could even be taken up for world–wide by GAELF implementation under its morbidity reduction programme.