Govt, Brac to apply for $43m fund for TB control programme
Kamrun Nahar | Sunday, 18 May 2014
The government and Brac will apply for US$ 43 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) by June 15 this year, a high official of the government said Saturday.
"The government will apply for global fund under the new funding model by June 15 this year. Brac and National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) will jointly apply for US$ 43 million which will be effective from July 2015 for 18 months programme," NTP Line Director Dr Ashaque Hossain told the FE.
"GFATM has been funding major portion of the NTP programme which is 80 per cent of the total fund," Dr Ashaque said adding this fund has been very effective for the TB control programme in Bangladesh, for which the programme has improved a lot and Bangladesh could achieve 100 per cent coverage by increasing treatment facilities and DOTS centres.
GFATM is an independent partnership between governments, civil society, private sector and affected communities, created in January 2002 dedicated to raising and investing large amounts of additional finance to support the rapid scale up of measures to prevent and treat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) has approved the Bangladesh proposal for TB in the 3, 5, 8 and 10 Rounds.
GFATM provided support for improved linkage with hospitals and different health facilities, equipments, microscopes, drugs, reagents and other logistics
HR support, nutritional support to TB-HIV, MDR-TB and ultra poor TB patients, investigation and transportation support (X-ray, FNAC, biopsy, base line and follow-up, etc.) to different TB symptomatic and TB patients, incentive to DOT providers for Drug sensitive TB, M/XDR TB treatment.
In Bangladesh TB incidence rate (all TB cases) is 225 per 0.1 million per year, prevalence rate (all TB cases) 434 per 0.1 million, mortality rate 45 per 0.1 million per year, incidence rate of HIV positive TB cases 0.16 per 0.1 million, proportion of MDR-TB (new cases) 1.4 per cent and previously treated cases 29 per cent.