Technical Assistance and Coordination Services for a Nationwide TB Drug Resistance Survey

Overview and Objectives

With guidance from the National Tuberculosis Control Programme and with support of the World Health Organization, the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, in collaboration with key stakeholders, is conducting a second Nationwide Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Survey (DRS). The survey will provide information on the prevalence of anti-TB drug resistance among new and retreatment patients and will contribute to a better understanding of national and international TB drug resistance. University Research Co., LLC (URC) is providing coordination and monitoring services for implementation of the DRS.

WHO/Dakha awarded a contract to URC for 12 months to provide monitoring and coordination service for the National Institute of Diseases of Chest and Hospital (NIDCH) 2nd Drug Resistance Survey (DRS) in Bangladesh.

Projects objectives were to:

  • Coordinate efforts of the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP), National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, National Institute of Disease of Chest and Hospital, and Supra National Reference Laboratory to implement survey-related activities and monitoring of field activities
  • Provide technical assistance in data collection, analysis, and interpretation
  • Advise DRS stakeholders in quality assurance processes

Achievements

  • Assisted principal investigator (PI) to complete the training of 209 field staff from 52 clusters on enrollment of patient and data collection
  • Assisted PI to enroll 1781 smear positive patients under DRS
  • Organized joint supervision and monitoring visits of government and NGO counterparts to 47 clusters and 23 chest disease clinics
  • Assisted PI to develop DRS SOP and distribute to all clusters
  • Regularly monitored all 47 active clusters with phone-based tool
  • Assisted PI to disseminate GenXpert and culture results to the respective cluster
  • Checked and cross checked quality of 1,781 inventory/ samples. Error rate was reduced from 29.17 percent to 3.22 percent.

Duration
2018–2019

Countries
Bangladesh

Regions
Asia

Expertise
Tuberculosis

Funders
World Health Organization (WHO)

Partners
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