Karisma Gupta will study Tuberculosis transmission in India
She will be using my 9 month Fulbright Scholarship to study the impact of upper room ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) on the transmission of tuberculosis in Maharashtra, India. India currently leads with the largest number of new TB cases, totaling to an economic loss of around $23 billion each year. This alarming fact, paired with the recent discovery of a drug resistant TB strain has led to a growing public health concern. This project will focus on installing upper room UVGI, which uses ultraviolet rays to eradicate harmful airborne microorganisms, in high burden settings such as hospital waiting rooms. Karisma will be working in affiliation with the Foundation for Medical Research (FMR) in Mumbai and under the guidance of Dr. Edward Nardell, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The goal is to identify obstacles that have been preventing critical medical technologies from being implemented in India, and harness this information to successfully install a sustainable UVGI device case study.
Congrats Karisma!!!