Integrated Measures for Prevention and Care in TB
Thematic Area: PRI led and TB Champion Engagement Model for Community Led TB Elimination Efforts
The IMPACT India Project, funded by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, is a flagship country-led initiative aimed at strengthening India’s response to tuberculosis (TB). Karnataka Health Promotion Trust serves as the Principal Recipient, providing overall leadership, coordination, and oversight for implementation across the country.
TB Alert India is an implementing agency responsible for executing project activities in the states of Haryana, Punjab, Telangana, and the Union Territory of Chandigarh for the period July 2024 to March 2027.
The overarching goal of the project is to enable community-led, decentralized TB services, ensuring improved access, early detection, and treatment adherence at the grassroots level.
Key Strategies :
Strengthening Community Led TB Elimination Efforts through Local Governance (Panchyat Raj Institutions): The project actively engages Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs)—local self-governance bodies—to enhance community ownership of TB elimination efforts. This includes:
- Saturating communities with accurate TB education and awareness
- Building the capacity of PRI members and local stakeholders
- Promoting and operationalizing the TB-Free Gram Panchayat (GP) initiative
Empowering TB Survivors as TB Champions: TB survivors are trained and supported as TB Champions, playing a critical role in community engagement. They are linked with nearby Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAMs) to:
- Lead localized TB awareness and prevention activities
- Provide peer support to individuals undergoing TB treatment
- Improve treatment adherence and ensure successful completion through lived-experience guidance
- Objectives
- Approach
- Activities
- Expected outcome
- Strengthen the community response to TB
- Improve the access of the TB affected communities to TB services such as diagnosis and treatment at the government facilities and contribute to improved health.
- Build the overall knowledge of the TB affected communities and general communities about general health education, personal hygiene, importance of sanitation and nutritious food.
- Raise awareness of the TB affected communities on government schemes such as Old Age Pension (OAP), Widow Pension and Disability Pension.
- Reduce the stigma and discrimination faced by the TB affected PLHAs.
CEPT adopted an approach of organizing the TB affected communities into Rainbow TB Association (RTBF) and building their capacities. Moreover, activities such as distributing IEC material and conducting Behaviour Change Communication were also adopted under the project.
- Bringing the TB Patients and other groups under the umbrella of TB Forums
- Distributing IEC material in the target groups for creating awareness
- Conducting health education activities to reach wider population
- Linking the identified patients to the TB units for notification, referral and treatment
- Raised awareness about TB services among the marginalised communities with special reference to women, children and PLHAs
- Increased knowledge about general health education, personal hygiene, importance of sanitation and nutritious food in the targeted communities and general population.
- Improved access of the PLHAs to the government facilities offering TB services such as diagnosis and treatment resulting into improved health
- Increase in the number of people with TB symptoms accessing designated TB diagnostic facilities for initial sputum test
- Decrease in stigma and discrimination towards the PLHAs affected by TB
