Efforts to control tuberculosis (TB) are increasingly complicated by multidrug-resistance (MDR) and HIV co-infection. One in three cases of TB in the world is from the South-East Asia region, which represents a burden of nearly six million cases to which three million new cases are added each year.

TB patients can recover completely if appropriately diagnosed and treated. The World Health Organization recommended TB control strategy, DOTS, is designed to improve patient adherence and reduce prevalence of TB in the population through observed administration of TB medicines. Misapplication of DOTS can introduce MDR or extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of TB.

RPM Plus targets improving access to quality antitubercular medicines—one of the main pillars of DOTS—by raising awareness of global TB initiatives, working to improve pharmaceutical management capacity, and partnering in strengthening commodities management for TB programs.

In December 2002, RPM Plus, in cooperation with Stop TB Partnership and the World Bank, conducted a case study of food supplements to better understand medicines-use patterns in the population and to determine how best to improve adherence to medical therapies in Cambodia. In India and Bangladesh, RPM Plus also provided technical assistance to counterparts conducting a country-level operational research and evaluation project on the use of incentives and enablers (I&E) to diagnose and treat TB. Following these studies, RPM Plus consolidated and disseminated findings to international health partners and continued to provide support for I&E studies elsewhere in the region.

>More on RPM Plus work in TB


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