Total Control of Tuberculosis(TC-TB)

The Total Control of Tuberculosis (TC-TB), has the objective to find the missing children with Tuberculosis and increase uptake of preventive treatment, improve diagnosis, improve uptake of TB treatment and ensure completion.

This is in efforts to end TB as a public health challenge by 2030. Each year, children with TB are missed by national health programs because they are not diagnosed, not treated, or not reported. Unless these individuals are reached, we will never end the global TB epidemic.

TC-TB is reducing TB incidences and mortality among children in three high-risk sub-districts of Lusaka, namely; Chawama, Chipata and Matero.

Our TC-TB field officers;

• Visit people with TB at home and give TB information.
• Make follow -ups in the community to screen contacts of people living with TB.
• Test all the eligible children and link them to treatment. All eligible children are escorted to the facilities and tested.
• Through under five clinics and collaboration with the nurses, observe those malnourished on nutrition support.
• Sensitize the parents of the children on treatment to ensure they adhere to treatment. The field officers and CHWs also make follow-ups, reminders for treatment to the parents.

The project specific target group is children eligible for TB preventive treatment who are HIV-negative, who made up a low percentage of people initiated on TB preventive therapy in 2022.

TC-TB ensures that there is patient engagement by which is critical to the successful preventive treatment by adopting a patient-centered approach that ensures that programs are attuned to the needs of patients.

Our field officers use a ‘one-stop shop’ approach that involves all steps in enrolment and screening being conducted during the home visits and making active referral of the children which includes escort and engagement of the parents.

We engage treatment supporters, TB survivors, community leaders and parents whose children have completed treatment to participate in community dialogue meetings, At the center of the program is community engagement, we are working with people affected by TB and empowering them with knowledge and skills.

The TB fight is aided by community conversations because they give affected individuals a chance to come up with specific plans of action to combat the disease, serve as a platform for the formation of a sense of shared purpose, challenge participants to overcome fear, denial, and passivity, and give the community members themselves a chance to become active problem solvers rather than passive information consumers.

Our community engagement is also helping in reducing silence, stigma and addressing gender sensitivity surrounding Tuberculosis. We prioritize the strengthening of community TB interventions to overcome barriers to accessing quality TB services, increase civil society engagement and improve the impact of national TB programs at all levels.

People-centered community, human rights and gender TB responses are vital towards eliminating the disease by 2030, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The Total Control of Tuberculosis project is supported by the Stop TB Partnership and is made possible with the support from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).