The nine-minute documentary demonstrates the power of the ECHO Model to transform stressed health care systems in Pakistan, which has the world’s highest hepatitis C prevalence.
At the beginning of the documentary, we see a man walking slowly past market stalls along an unpaved street. “I became very sick and was unable to do work,” he explains. As he tells his story of receiving a hepatitis C diagnosis and finding a Project ECHO-trained physician close enough to where he lives, the documentary cuts to other physicians and key collaborators in Pakistan who are part of the programs that saved his life.
Created by PARSA Trust, a Project ECHO Superhub based in Pakistan, the documentary explores the genesis of PARSA ECHO’s country-wide, lifesaving impact on the capacity to treat hepatitis C in Pakistan.
According to the Journal of Infectious Disease, World Health Organization data from 2020 shows Pakistan maintains the highest hepatitis C prevalence in the world: roughly one in 13 people, or 7.5% of the population, are infected, and about 545,000 new people are infected every year. While treatment is 96% effective, only 22% of hepatitis C cases are diagnosed, and only 2% of cases receive treatment.
PARSA ECHO wanted to create a solution for hepatitis C care. “In my [gastroenterology] clinic, I began to see how you treat one patient, and they are replaced by two. You treat two patients, and then you have four. And on and on. We could not get to scale. People cannot afford care, and we could not reach everyone,” Dr. Asad Choudhry, Director of PARSA ECHO, explains.
“When I met Dr. Sanjeev Arora and heard about Project ECHO, I knew immediately, this is what I need to do.”
Pakistan’s ECHO programs have reached more than 3,500 frontline healthcare providers country-wide, empowering a wide range of clinicians to access ongoing education and specialization in hepatitis C care, including those who would typically be barred from pursuing specialized fellowships.
“Since I’m female and married, while working as a general practitioner, I could not pursue specialization,” Dr. Mishal Azam, a primary care physician, explains, “which is why this program has been beneficial.”
Since its beginning in 2017, PARSA ECHO now has more than 15 curriculum tracks, a comprehensive faculty of international and in-country experts, and a network of physicians who have treated an additional 100,000 patients across Pakistan because of the ECHO Model. The hepatitis C program met weekly from 2017 until 2021, and as interest in other programs grew, their original ECHO now meets monthly.
“Project ECHO is not limited to a particular disease,” explained Osman Khalid Waheed, CEO of Ferazsons Laboratories, and a key funder of PARSA ECHO. “There’s not a field out there where the ECHO Model can’t be applied for improving patient outcomes.”
Learn more about PARSA ECHO at their website and Linktree.
For their support of the “Journey” documentary project, PARSA ECHO would like to acknowledge PARSA ECHO Chairman, Sohail Akhtar; PARSA Trust CEO, CKD Agri; and their longtime partner and esteemed funder Osman Khalid Waheed, CEO of Ferozsons Laboratories Limited.