Bangladesh: Health: Combating diseases

Tuberculosis Control Programme

Tuberculosis is one of the leading killers of adults in Bangladesh.  Through prompt diagnosis and completion of six months of daily medications, it can effectively treated.  BRAC pioneered community-based models to bring these services to the villages in 1984.  Since 1994 has formally supported the National Tuberculosis Program in the implementation of treatment with supervision, often called the directly observed therapy, short-course (DOTS) strategy.  In Bangladesh, BRAC has been the principal recipient for 44 non-government organizations (NGOs) for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria since 2004.  In addition to providing partners with technical support and supervision, BRAC directly implements programs that cover 298 sub-districts (out of 483) with a population of 94 million, primarily though the activities of 85,000 shasthya shebikas, community health volunteers.  In recent years, BRAC has forged partnerships with a variety of providers, industry partners, and other government authorities to create a portfolio of innovative strategies to provide referral networks and expanded access to vulnerable patients in diverse settings. It now operates 24 Medical institutions with an innovative “DOTS corner” model, Chittagong and Khulna Port Authority Hospitals, prisons and garment factories, and in engaging a number of private practitioners in referral linkages.  HIV collaborative project offers HIV screening tests for the TB patients in six DOTS corners of BRAC under Dhaka and Chittagong City Corporations.

In 2010, BRAC treated 95,124 TB patients with a treatment success rate if 93%.  As a result of these accomplishments and the successes of the entire partnership, Bangladesh is currently on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving prevalence by 2015.


Malaria Control Programme

Malaria is a major public health concern in Bangladesh, affecting 13 districts that are home to 11 million people. Malaria is caused by plasmodium parasites and spread to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes. Through a variety of prevention and curative strategies, BRAC is working to eliminate malaria as public health threat.

The National Malaria Control Program works with 20 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to implement control activities in affected areas.  In 2007, Bangladesh successfully secured support from Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria to strengthen and expand national malaria control activities. As the principle recipient for the NGO component, BRAC provides support to other NGO partners to improve the quality and scale of their activities.
Building on the established essential health care model, BRAC’s strategy for malaria control is: to inform and educate people at the community level, promote use of insecticides treated nets and facilitate early diagnosis and prompt treatment. Diagnostic and treatment services are delivered mainly through shasthya shebikas, community health volunteers, and shasthya kormi, community health workers. BRAC covers four districts, three highly endemic districts of Chittagong Hill Tract (Rangamati, Khagrachori and Bandarban) and Moulvibazar.  In addition, BRAC has established laboratories and outreach centers for blood slide examination.  Awareness about malaria is a critical component to successful control: BRAC provides a variety of orientation events and uses local popular theatre shows, folk songs, loudspeaker announcements, TV and radio spots, and cable TV network.

Since 2007, BRAC has distributed 1.8 million long lasting insecticide nets and treated 3.3 million ordinary bed nets with insecticide. A total of 277,065 malaria cases have been diagnosed, 166,230 through the support of community health volunteers.