Hope force: India's army of 600,000 virus-hunting women goes on strike

ASHA workers act as a stopgap in the country's porous health care system, delivering assistance from maternal health to immunization in its vast rural hinterland

They helped eradicate polio in India and reduced the number of women dying during child birth. But the country’s catastrophic coronavirus outbreak, now the third-largest in the world, has pushed its all-female army of contact-tracing health workers to breaking point.

After months of harassment, underpayment and lack of protection from infection, about 600,000 of the country’s one million Accredited Social Health Activists -- or ASHAs, which also means hope in Hindi -- are going on strike for two days starting Aug. 7 to draw attention to their plight. Union leaders expect more may join as the word spreads.

They want