Tuberculosis
What We Do › Tuberculosis
“Thanks to the modernization of this laboratory, specialists in Transnistria will be able to make a diagnosis of tuberculosis in a timely fashion. For the country as a whole, this means that the TB situation in Moldova is now being thoroughly and comprehensively monitored.”
Boris Golovin, Deputy Minister of Health, Republic of Moldova, speaking at the October 2005 opening ceremony for the Regional Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory in Bender. The lab was renovated through AIHA's Strengthening Tuberculosis Control in Moldova project.
Spread through the air as readily as the common cold, tuberculosis kills more than 1.7 million people each year. Worldwide, 2 billion people are infected with tuberculosis bacilli and, left untreated, each one can infect as many as 15 others annually. Driven in particular by skyrocketing infection rates in South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, TB is currently increasing by about 1 percent every year and disproportionately affects poor, malnourished individuals.
In many developing or transitioning countries, tuberculosis has been declared a national or regional emergency by ministries of health. Multi-drug resistant or extremely drug resistant strains of the disease are on the rise in high burden areas and take an especially heavy toll on people living with HIV/AIDS. In fact, TB is a leading cause of death among HIV-infected individuals.
AIHA’s tuberculosis control programs focus on building sustainable capacity of institutions and healthcare professionals alike to help them more effectively respond to the global TB crisis. Together with our twinning partners and public health experts from WHO, CDC, and national and local ministries of health, AIHA is working to stem the spread of TB by raising public awareness, training clinicians and allied health professionals, and improving conditions at medical facilities and labs.
Projects
AIHA’s efforts to improve tuberculosis control through specific programmatic activities include:
Strengthening Tuberculosis Control in Moldova Project
Funded by USAID, AIHA’s Strengthening Tuberculosis Control in Moldova project focuses on fortifying Moldova’s network of TB laboratories, making them both safer and more efficient. Lab workers and primary care providers are given targeted training that helps ensure they remain healthy. Read more...
Riga (Latvia)/Little Rock (Arkansas) Partnership
AIHA’s partnership linking the State Centre of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases of Latvia in the Baltic nation’s capital of Riga with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock worked to establish a financially sustainable Multi-drug Resistant TB Center of Excellence in Latvia. Read more...
Volgograd (Russia)/Little Rock (Arkansas) Partnership
AIHA’s partnership between the Volgograd State Medical Academy in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock worked together to improve tuberculosis prevention, care, and treatment through targeted training and the introduction of modern, evidence-based clinical practices. Read more...
Tuberculosis Information Resources
Disseminating accurate, timely information rooted in evidence-based practices and sharing successful models and lessons learned plays an important role in AIHA’s strategy for sustainable healthcare programs. For more information about tuberculosis, please visit the following sites:
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