Report : tuberculosis private sector engagement study

It followed a mixed-methods approach utilizing secondary data from the National TB Program (NTP)'s Vietnam TB Information Management Electronic System, supplemented by primary data collection. Primary data collection consisted of a survey of 850 health providers and 271 TB patients, together with a set of interviews with 68 key informants in Hai Phong and An Giang. These two provinces are among the areas with the highest TB cases in the north and south of Vietnam, respectively. Survey data indicated poor private engagement regarding services provision, guidelines compliance, and connection to the NTP. Despite this, patients reported a slightly higher satisfaction level with TB-related services provided by public health facilities. The qualitative component further identified several determinants of the poor private engagement in TB control and management, including chronic under-investment in human resources and infrastructure for TB, consideration of financial gain among private providers, ineffective management of the public-private mix (PPM) program, poor awareness of TB, and individual and system-level stigma against TB. Despite the secondary data on the number of patients treated in Hai Phong and An Giang, the limited data availability made it difficult to draw a meaningful conclusion regarding how representative these statistics were within the TB epidemic context in Vietnam. Nevertheless, these results highlight the need to strengthen PPM systematically through building management and human capacity at the local level, enhancing in-service TB training, optimizing the reporting mechanism, simplifying administrative procedures, and promoting TB communication for the public.