Since 2005, The Union Office in Mandalay has been providing TB services in Myanmar, one of 22 countries with the highest levels of TB. In 2012, The Union collaborated with the government and People Affected by TB (PATB) community to launch PICTS: a Program to Increase Catchment of TB Suspects. Initially funded by TB REACH, and currently co-funded by The Union’s headquarters, PICTS will now continue with support from the Global Fund from 2014 to 2016. PICTS has deployed thousands of volunteers across the seven townships of Mandalay to reinforce case finding and access to diagnosis by increasing community awareness of TB through mass communications, decentralisation of symptom screening, sputum collection closer to the community and referral to Township Health Centres (TSHC).
Through TB REACH, The Union also initiated the use of new diagnostic technologies such as fluorescent microscopy and GeneXpert. As the result of these efforts, more than 35,000 people with possible TB were screened and 2,084 cases of TB diagnosed, including 808 bacteriologically confirmed cases.