Our patient-centered approach dramatically increases TB screening rates and preventive therapy uptake especially for children under 5
Our flagship program runs at one of the largest TB hospitals in Pakistan - the Federal Government TB Centre in Rawalpindi.
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The program work on the ground is delivered by our partner Marie Adelaide Leporosy Centre working with the kind permission of the Pakistan Ministry of Health.
We ran a pilot from August to November 2024 to launch our model.
Before the pilot, TPT rates were very low and the hospital did not have have services for children. They wished to do more community outreach.
We designed a household screening and TPT program which involved:
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Launching a new household visit program
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Establishing an arrangement for referrals for paediatric services
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Providing capacity building for the hospital
For those under 5 years old, our innovative telemedicine approach means we can screen children and deliver the first month of medicine all in one visit from our team - making it as quick and easy as possible to reach these children.
For those over 5 years old, we introduced counselling, a referral form and reminder phone calls to provide them with the information and encouragement necessary to visit the hospital and get screened for TB.
The results from our pilot demonstrate the success of this approach.
We worked with 167 people living with TB and their 950 household contacts. Even with low program costs, our program was able to achieve very high rates of TB screening and evaluation.
30%
Of household contacts of all ages were evaluated for TB.
87%
Of household contacts under 5 years old were evaluated for TB.
Uptake of TPT was extremely high. Future work will focus on ensuring this carries through into taking and completing the medicine until the end of the course.
100%
Uptake of TPT of those found eligible of all ages.
278
Started TPT in the 2 months of the pilot compared to 11 people in the 3 months before the pilot.
We estimate that this program is highly cost-effective in line with some of the best global health programs.
