The Eradicate Tuberculosis Project Quarterly Report October 2017 - December 2017

The project is a five-year initiative led by PATH and implemented in partnership with the Government of the Republic of Zambia, the National Tuberculosis Program, the private sector, and other stakeholders at the national, provincial, district, and community levels. The project's objectives are to increase the number of individuals screened for TB in the target provinces by 50 percent and to increase TB treatment success rate to 85 percent and beyond. The project focuses on four main tasks in the six provinces of Northern, Luapula, Muchinga, Copperbelt, Central, and North-Western. These tasks include pursuing high-quality DOTS expansion and enhancement, addressing TB-HIV, Multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, and the needs of poor and vulnerable populations, engaging all categories of providers, and enabling and promoting research. The project also maintains a keen focus on ensuring that all activities are informed by the activity's various strategies, including Private Provider Engagement, NTP Engagement strategy, Private Sector Investment Strategy, and the Gender Integration Strategy. During the fourth quarter of 2017, the project achieved several key milestones. The Year 2 work plan was developed and submitted on December 20, 2017, and USAID provided feedback that was addressed by the project and resubmitted for review and approval. The project finalized the recruitment and placement of all project staff, including Provincial TB Technical and Laboratory Specialists, and supported the National TB Program in conducting a participatory rapid review of TB management human resources. The project also strengthened the National TB Program's field appraisal tool, which captures data in relation to community awareness and TB-Care program. The tool was modified to integrate key performance aspects of the project, and assessments were conducted to establish social support programs, structures in the community, current TB awareness activities, gaps or needs, potential sources of communication, and identified community stakeholders in the project districts. The project also supported the National TB Program in reviewing and finalizing the treatment supporter's manual and oriented THPAZ national and provincial leadership on ETB Community TB activities. In addition, the project supported the National TB Program in a rapid laboratory assessment and mapping exercise in preparation for the development of a "new technology scale-up plan" based on existing national documents to inform GeneXpert machine. The project also provided technical and laboratory support to ETB-supported districts of Luapula and Central Provinces and jointly developed a Work plan for Quality Management Strengthening activities for ISO 15189 with NTRL. The project's Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning section presents key performance monitoring indicators, highlighting baseline values (2016 data) and project performance in Q4: 2017 (October to December 2017). A general low performance observed in a number of indicators is attributed to the data collection cycle for the project that began early. The project has learned that most facilities update source documents by the 7th of the following month after the end of a reporting quarter, and moving forward, the project will adjust its start date of the data collection exercise from the 3rd to the 8th.