The Union Uganda Office has been awarded Wave 2 funding from TB-REACH to continue its successful project, SPARK-TB (Slum Partnerships to Actively Respond to Tuberculosis in Kampala). SPARK-TB is improving access to quality TB diagnosis and treatment within private health facilities for the urban poor in the slums of Kampala district by fostering Public-Private partnerships (PPP).
Although many people in Kampala turn first to private-for-profit (PFP) clinics as the most accessible option for medical care, these clinics are expensive and, in the past, the TB services offered were very poor. With more than 50% of Kampala's population living in slum areas, the need to improve TB services at these clinics was great; and The Union also saw that working with them would provide an opportunity to increase TB case detection, reduce transmission, prevent the development of drug-resistant TB and ultimately reduce TB-related deaths.
In 2012, The Union developed partnerships with 100 PFP clinics and built their capacity through training health workers and laboratory personnel, providing support supervision, disseminating national TB guidelines and providing tools for recording and reporting data. The capacity of the clinic's laboratories was also strengthened by their enrolment into the national External Quality Assurance (EQA) scheme to improve the accuracy of smear microscopy.
In order to generate demand for the improved services offered by the private clinics, The Union and its partners conducted advocacy, communication and social mobilization (ACSM) activities in the community, such as health camps, school health talks and peer educators in salons and barber shops.
These efforts led to the detection of 633 TB cases, which the project has been able to demonstrate would not have been detected otherwise. All of the patients received either community-based directly observed treatment (DOT) or health facility-based DOT.
Year 2 of the SPARK-TB project will focus on strengthening and consolidating the gains made in Year 1 and also foster the sustainability of the established PPPs with the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Programme.