Bangladesh: Health: Tuberculosis Control

Tuberculosis (TB) is a primary cause of death among adults in Bangladesh. Despite the availability of affodable, effective treatment of TB, the annual total estimates of new cases worldwide was 9.2 million in 2006, with deaths from TB estimated at 1.5 million deaths in HIV negative cases, and 0.2 million among people with HIV/AIDS. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks Bangladesh 6th among the world's 22 high burden TB countries, and has declared TB a "global emergency" (WHO, 1993).

One of the eight global Millenium Goals is the halting of TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS by 2015, all of which are key components of BRAC's Essential Health Care programme provided to BRAC beneficiaries and their communities. BRAC has been taking effective action against TB, scaling up its community based projects with the govenment to keep pace with needs of the Bangladesh population. BRAC's TB programme covers 42 districts in Bangladesh, both urban and rural, as a main aspect of the Essential Health Care core programme.  At present it is implemented in 100 percent of project areas.

Tuberculosis is contagious but completely curable through Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS). Trained health volunteers, supervised by paid health workers, educate people about the signs and symptoms of TB, motivate suspected TB patients to get tested at a nearby BRAC or government facility, and provide free treatment for TB.  These health volunteers and health workers employ the proven effective DOTS methodology to ensure that the patient is observed taking medication for TB. Treatment for TB is comprised of a short course of antibiotics that must be completed to avoid TB resistent strains. Incentives that BRAC has developed to encourage identification and successful treatment of TB include that the patient gives 200 Taka to the health volunteers/ workers until the sucessful completion and negative test result for TB following treatment. Health volunteers receive 150 Taka subsequent to successful treatment of a TB patient.

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