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TB Policy Accountability

South Africa’s National TB Recovery Plan and National Strategic Plan for HIV, TB and STIs 2023-2028 (NSP) describe key strategies to end TB in our communities.

Now, TB guidelines outline that all close TB contacts, people living with HIV, and people with previous TB (in the past two years) should get tested for TB.

If they test positive, they must start TB treatment without delay. If they test negative, they should take TB Preventive Therapy (TPT) for protection against TB Infection progressing to TB disease.

Yet, these services are not always accessible, acceptable and of high quality. Local community leaders are uniquely positioned to raise awareness of new guidelines at the community level to create demand for these services and to play a role in community-led monitoring to hold the Department of Health accountable for policy implementation.

Vision

To support the effective implementation of the TB Recovery Plan and National TB Strategic Plan (NTP).

Aims

  1. Strengthen accountability and responsiveness of national and provincial Departments of Health (DoH) for delivery of the TB Recovery Plan and NTP.
  2. Enhance civil society and community TB champion advocacy for TB priorities through multiple fora.
  3. Increase demand from communities for delivery of quality TB services.

Project Achievements

1. Community-based demand creation for TB testing

TB Proof aimed to raise awareness about new TB testing guidelines through ongoing community engagement. We facilitated a Design Thinking workshop with 24 community leaders, including representatives from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), youth leaders and religious leaders to inform a campaign strategy. Based on their feedback, we launched a “Think TB” campaign that reached diverse audiences to raise awareness about TB, and new TB testing guidelines.

Community engagement activities included:

  • World TB day events at schools reaching over 500 participants
  • Nelson Mandela day event at Kuyasa clinic in Khayelitsha to revive a vegetable garden that will provide nutritional support to people living with TB in the community
  • Community health worker training at Philani
  • A series of radio interviews on Zibonele FM by Goodman Makanda
  • Social media videos featuring TB Proof members’ key advocacy messages (Click here to view the videos)
  • TB mentorship and training to 11 community leaders from Delft and Elsies River.

2. Policy and decision maker engagement to increase TB testing and support contact tracing, treatment and prevention

TB Proof conducted key stakeholder interviews regarding the implementation of the TB Recovery Plan and TB policies and published findings with recommendations to strengthen TB policy implementation in the BMC Global and Public Health (click here).

TB Proof co-developed advocacy letters that were sent to the Minister of Health and we presented key asks on behalf of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) Civil Society Forum TB Task Team (2023 letter here, 2024 letter here). We handed the advocacy letter to the Director General of Health at the closing ceremony of the 2024 TB conference and secured follow-up meetings between policymakers and civil society organisations to co-develop action plans to increase TB policy implementation.

Resources

  • Community TB stigma video click here to view the video
  • Health worker TB stigma video click here to view the video
  • Journal articles Analysing interventions designed to reduce tuberculosis-related stigma: A scoping review

    click here to read more

Our advocacy projects​​

Latent TB Treatment

Some people may have latent TB – where some is infected by the TB bacteria but they do not show TB symptoms and cannot infect others.

CHW TB Champions

A community health worker (CHW) is a representative of a specific community. They have earned the communities’ trust to enter their homes and assist them to improve their health status.
For many years patients were given a difficult choice: die because of drug resistant TB or become deaf as a results of the treatment.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) are three times more likely to be infected by TB than the general public and six times more likely to be hospitalized with drug-resistant TB.