Tuberculosis South Africa Project (TBSAP)

Overview

The Tuberculosis South Africa Project (TBSAP) provided technical assistance to the Government of South Africa to reduce the burden of tuberculosis and multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in the country.

TBSAP built upon interventions and achievements from URC’s USAID TB CARE II South Africa and the prior TB South Africa Project.

TB CARE II activities included supporting the South Africa National Department of Health’s TB prevention and control efforts, working closely with national and provincial partners to close identified gap areas, and further developing sustainable systems that can carry forward long-term improvements in TB and drug-resistant TB diagnosis, care, and treatment services.

Objectives

• Reduce TB infections
• Increase the sustainability of effective TB response systems
• Improve care and treatment of vulnerable populations

Achievements

• Reduced test turnaround time: TBSAP made a variety of detection, testing, and treatment improvements, including reducing the overall turnaround time from sputum collection to treatment in hospital settings from 4.3 days to one day in 2018 in 14 hospitals in Gauteng Province. This success is due in part to implementation of the FAST approach.
• Created a mobile health app to support TB testing and treatment: TBSAP developed and uses the ConnecTB mobile health application for recording and reporting patient data during directly observed treatment support visits to TB and MDR-TB patients. The app was launched in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Health District in June 2015. Within nine months of initiation, loss to follow-up rates in supported areas were much lower than rates in the greater Mandela Bay District area.

Resources

• USAID TB South Africa Project Interventions during the COVID-19 crisis
   

MDR-TB patient recovers through support from the USAID TB South Africa Project