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Building Our Toolkit for TB Elimination

The Zero TB Initiative is a multi-institutional alliance of local coalitions that are working to rapidly drive down TB rates by using a comprehensive approach that integrates three simultaneous components: SEARCH, TREAT, and PREVENT. This webinar series will comprise units to: (a) review the principles and components of a comprehensive approach, and (b) bring together coalitions to share their experiences.

To date, we have held four separate sessions examining the best practices in the detection, treatment and prevention of TB. The first session focused on preventive therapy and included the experience of colleagues in Karachi, Pakistan in implementing a program to provide TB preventive treatment to individuals exposed at home to both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant forms of TB. The following three sessions were led by Dr. Jen Furin and focused on the treatment and prevention of drug-resistant TB in children and adolescents. All of the recordings are posted below in both English and Spanish. 

Session 1: Preventive Therapy

A major challenge for local Zero TB coalitions is to expand access to effective preventive therapy regimens for all those who can benefit from them. Children and adults who live with a person sick with TB (household contacts) are themselves at high risk of TB disease and death. Multiple preventive therapy regimens exist that can protect them. Yet these regimens are not routinely available in most of the world. In this session, a coalition from Pakistan will share their experience with building a program to screen and treat persons exposed at home to drug-resistant and drug-sensitive tuberculosis.

Mercedes Becerra, ScD     Hamidah Hussain, MBBS, MSc, PhD

Amyn Malik, MBBS, MPH, PhD     Maria Jaswal, MD

 

Session 2: Updated Guidance on TB in Children and Adolescents

Throughout the remaining weeks of the summer months, the Center for Global Health at Socios en Salud, the Center for Global Health Delivery at Harvard Medical School, and the Sentinel Project on Pediatric Drug Resistant Tuberculosis continued the series Building Our Toolkit for Local TB Elimination. Physician-anthropologist and TB expert Jennifer Furin gave a series of three excellent talks on improvements in the standards of care in the treatment of DR-TB infection and disease, with a focus on updated guidance for treating DR-TB in children and adolescents. Each of these talks was followed by a rich discussion and question and answer session with colleagues from around the globe. The goal of this series was to advance the work of the Zero TB Initiative by disseminating the most up-to-date information on the treatment and prevention of TB. All of the recordings are available below in both English and Spanish.

Jen Furin Biography