The Kenya Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (KAPTLD) has won the award to implement the formal component of the Public Private Mix (PPM) approach while the Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO) has been awarded the informal component of the same grant within the USAID funded Tuberculosis Accelerated Response and Care (TB ARC) Activity.
The award followed an active call for proposals in December 2014 where interested applicants were invited to propose how they would engage both Formal, private health care providers (FP) and Non-formal, private health care providers (N-FP) in TB management.
Private providers are first points of care for many patients in developing countries while people in urban areas and of rich wealth quintile are more likely to consult formal private health care providers. On the other hand, informal providers in developing countries are important points of care pre and post-diagnosis for the poor, as they are convenient, affordable and culturally sensitive. However, these informal providers are often unregistered, unregulated, poorly trained or not trained at all and hence not updated on treatment and service provision guidelines.
To address these concerns, KAPTLD will be required to engage formal health care providers such as private for profit or self financing hospitals, corporate health services, individual private for profit health care providers (solo providers), retail pharmacies, chemists and drug shops to sustain the gains of PPM and scale up to more formal providers, ensure quality assurance of PPM activities, support the coordination of PPM at national and county levels and encourage innovation in engagement of formal providers.
KANCO will be required to engage informal private health care providers such as herbalists, traditional healers, traditional birth attendants, village doctors, unregistered chemists, and drug sellers to identify informal providers, streamline TB engagement among informal providers, scale up innovative models such as the ASHA and telemedicine models to reduce the burden on TB.
This is line with the NTLD-Program’s strategic goal to scale up the number and diversity of private sectors engaged in quality TB management. The STOP TB Strategy further calls for the engagement of all relevant health care providers in TB care and control through Public – Private Mix (PPM) approach. This move is also aligned to TB ARC’s intermediate result area three that seeks to provide technical assistance for the local adoption and scale up of globally proven interventions.
Speaking on the award, Dr Brenda Mungai, TB ARC Ag Chief of Party explained, “We know that about 20,000 patients are currently undiagnosed and untreated for TB across the country. Statistics show that both the formal and informal private health providers provide about 50% of all health care to Kenyans where a potential number of TB clients could be seeking care.”
With support from USAID, TB ARC will support this component targeting both sectors to bridge the gap to the unreached and ensure appropriate treatment.
