The Union has launched a new research project to better understand the missed opportunities to identify people with tuberculosis (TB) when they attend healthcare facilities in three French-speaking African countries.
The Patient Pathways and Missed Opportunities for TB in Francophone Africa (POMa_Tub) Project is being carried out in Central African Republic, Niger and Senegal.
Dr Kobto Koura, Director of TB at The Union, said: “For many years now, there has been a gap in the detection of TB around the world. There are many reasons why we are missing these people with TB; some may not experience symptoms so do not seek medical attention, others may have signs of TB but can’t access care, or the stigma of TB keeps them away from a diagnosis.”
The Union, in partnership with the National TB Programmes, will analyse the patient journey and try to understand the reasons for these missed TB diagnostic opportunities for both the people with TB and the healthcare system.
The POMa_Tub Project, funded by the French Development Agency, will assess everyone attending selected health facilities, including those attending consultations and those accompanying relatives or friends, to determine if they have TB.
Participants will be invited to complete a questionnaire, and based on the responses, may be asked to provide a sputum sample for TB testing and perform a chest X-ray. If a TB diagnosis is confirmed, the individual will be connected with appropriate TB services and interviewed by an anthropologist to understand why they hadn’t been previously diagnosed. The anthropologist will also perform a home visit to interview the relatives of the person with TB.
Dr Koura added: “We hope by better understanding how people with TB are missed, even when they interact with the healthcare system, we will be able to improve our ability to protect people from the infectious disease.”
The study has only been underway for less than one month in Central African Republic, but the study team has already identified 42 people with TB from the 800 people they have screen.
The POMa_Tub Project is being delivered in collaboration with the three National TB Programmes and several other partners.