Team Blitz India
LONDON: A £4-million funding boost from the UK for the Tuberclosis (TB) Reach programme will help test new approaches to increase the number of people diagnosed and treated for the disease in low- and middle-income countries, announced the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
This support will provide health services to 500,000 people, detect cases of TB in 37,000 people, save more than 15,000 lives, an official statement added on March 24, World Tuberculosis Day.
The main objective of TB Reach is to increase case detection of tuberculosis – detect it as early as possible, and ensure timely and complete treatment while maintaining high cure rates.
The programme focuses on reaching people with limited or no access to TB services and looks for innovative ways to do this.
With this funding, TB Reach, part of the UK’s Global Fund Accelerator Programme, will be able to finance more organisations to test out innovative approaches that will also strengthen health systems and combat antimicrobial resistance.
Some of the projects the UK is supporting through TB Reach include scaling up preventative treatment for TB in Brazil, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia and Pakistan; integrating TB screening and services into maternal health services in Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan to tackle rising numbers of pregnant and postpartum women with the disease; using portable x-ray machines and AI to diagnose TB in prisons in Mozambique.
Research into TB is vital and lifesaving. The UK has provided critical support to the development of new drug treatments through its support to the TB Alliance and new diagnostics with support to FIND, the Global Alliance for Diagnostics.
