MARYLAND (TIP): Indian American owned health care informatics company CTIS led by its founders Raj and Bharti Shah, have collaborated with the Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education and Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College to equip and dispatch a custom-designed mobile health care services van to Maharashtra, India.

The mobile clinic, the parties say, is designed to address the fact that India assumes a large burden of chronic and infectious diseases, leading the world in deaths related to tuberculosis, cervical cancer and diabetes, and ranking third in the number of people with HIV.

Equipped with a $100,000 donation from CTIS and the Shahs, the mobile clinic features advanced laboratory equipment for disease diagnoses, including a GeneXpert rapid TB diagnostic system. The van includes other modern care and treatment capabilities, including mobile radiology equipment.

While mobile clinics sponsored by corporate hospitals and charity organizations have been deployed in Maharashtra primarily to provide health care in rural areas, the group behind this effort say it is novel, in that it will strategically enhance community outreach for tuberculosis screening, research and care, and provide wellness services.

Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education Director Robert Bollinger, M.D., M.P.H., says the support from the Shahs will lead to improvements in health and wellness in Maharashtra, as well as provide a model for innovative health research, care and wellness for the rest of India.