One year of COVID-19 and its impact on private provider engagement for TB: A rapid assessment of intermediary NGOs in seven high TB burden countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted health systems and health programs across the world. For tuberculosis (TB), it is predicted to set back progress by at least twelve years. Public private mix (PPM)has made a vital contribution to reach End TB targets with a ten-fold rise in TB notifications from private providers between 2012 and 2019. This is due in large part to the efforts of intermediary agencies, which aggregate demand from private providers. The COVID-19 pandemic has put these gains at risk over the past year. In this rapid assessment, representatives of 15 intermediary agencies from seven countries that are considered the highest priority for PPM in TB care (the Big Seven) share their views on the impact of COVID-19 on their programs, the private providers operating under their PPM schemes, and their private TB clients. All intermediaries reported a drop in TB testing and notifications, and the closure of some private practices. While travel restrictions and the fear of contracting COVID-19 were the main contributing factors, there were also unanticipated expenses for private providers, which were transferred to patients via increased prices. Intermediaries also had their routine activities disrupted and had to shift tasks and budgets to meet the new needs. However, the intermediaries and their partners rapidly adapted, including an increased use of digital tools, patient-centric services, and ancillary support for private providers. Despite many setbacks, the COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of effective private sector engagement. The robust approach to fight COVID-19 has shown the possibilities for ending TB with a similar approach, augmented by the digital revolution around treatment and diagnostics and the push to decentralize health services.

TB case notification by private health-sector; retrospective study in 13 metro districts of Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of structured engagement of private providers in tuberculosis case notification and to investigate demographic profile, disease pattern and treatment outcome of tuberculosis patients seeking care from private care providers. METHODS: This retrospective study was carried out in 13 districts of Pakistan with the data of tuberculosis patients registered and diagnosed from July 2015 to June 2016 at directly observed treatment, short-course trained private providers. These facilities in collaboration with Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan, a private organisation and the National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Pakistan, provided free anti-tuberculosis drugs and sputum smear microscopy. Study variables included socio-demographic character, disease patterns and treatment outcomes of patients along with details of the registering facility. Data was analysed using SPSS 23. RESULTS: There were 1317 directly observed treatment, short-course trained private health facilities and 123 private laboratories. Of the health facilities, 880(67%) reported 13769 tuberculosis patients. Of them, 7388(53.65%) were females and 6381(46.34%) were males. Overall, 10232(74.31%) were diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and 3537(25.68%) were extra pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Among the pulmonary patients, 4195(41%) were diagnosed through sputum smear microscopy as bacteriologically confirmed (B+ve), while the remaining 6037(59%) were diagnosed through X-ray or other tests. Out of all the diagnosed patients 13218(96%) were treated successfully.. CONCLUSIONS: Private healthcare sector has great potential of supporting tuberculosis control. Gender and age had critical implications in service utilisation.

Effectiveness of outreach chest camps in detection of missed TB cases in Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of outreach chest camp intervention for detection of missed tuberculosis cases in Pakistan and to evaluate the demographic profile of those who are dependent on such doorstep healthcare services. METHODS: This retrospective study was carried out using data from the outreach chest camp intervention organised by Greenstar Social Marketing company from August 2015 till December 2016 in Lahore, Gujrat and Sheikhupura districts of Pakistan's Punjab province. The intervention involved a set of community mobilisation events in hard-to-reach areas and in healthcare facilities which are deprived of suitable settings, followed by free medical camps where medical consultation and tuberculosis diagnostic facility of sputum smear microscopy were provided to the camp attendees. The data was taken as per set variables and analysed using SPSS 23. RESULTS: A total of 399chest camps were conducted, where 22,399 patients were clinically assessed for the presence or absence of tuberculosis. Overall, 12,319(55%) of the attendees were females and 10,080(45%) were males. Of the total, 5,226(24.6%) had signs and symptoms of tuberculosis and were declared as tuberculosis presumptive cases. After diagnostic investigations, 831(3.7%) individuals were declared confirmed tuberculosis patients. Amongst the total confirmed cases, 439(52.8%) were diagnosed through sputum smear microscopy with percent bacteria positivity of 8. (95% confidence interval [CI] 7.54 - 9.02). CONCLUSIONS: Chest camp intervention was found to have great potential to detect missed tuberculosis cases, thus limiting the spread of disease in the community.