Mobile Stroke Units (MSUs) handed over by the ICMR to the Assam government have transformed stroke care in the state dropping treatment time from 24 hours to just two hours. Stroke-related deaths have fallen by one-third. Disability has reduced nearly eightfold.
The MSUs allow patients from remote areas to receive rapid diagnosis and treatment while in transit. The initiative marks a major shift in emergency stroke care in Assam.
The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said that between 2021 and August 2024, the MSU received over two thousand emergency calls.
The Ministry added that trained nurses screened 294 suspected stroke cases in which 90 percent of patients were treated directly from their homes. It also informed that the integration of the MSU with the 108-emergency ambulance service expanded its reach to a 100-kilometre radius.
Handing over the MSU to the state government, Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General, ICMR Dr Rajiv Bahl, said, India has evaluated such units in rural, remote, and difficult terrain in Northeast India.
He added that India is also the second country globally to report successful integration of an MSU with emergency medical services for treating rural acute ischemic stroke patients. Mr Bahl further underlined that Mobile Stroke Units were first developed in Germany and later evaluated in major global cities.
The MSU is a mobile hospital on wheels, equipped with a CT scanner, teleconsultation with specialists, point-of-care laboratory, and clot-busting drugs, enabling early diagnosis and treatment of stroke at or near the patient’s home.
