Task Force Logo Partners TB Control Program






One-third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis (TB); one person is newly infected every second. More than 4,500 people die from TB every day, which adds up to almost 2 million deaths each year. Inadequate therapy has led to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and new cases of MDR-TB are estimated to be more than 400,000 each year. MDR-TB threatens the gains of DOTS programs (WHO’s comprehensive strategy to stop TB) since DOTS, as currently implemented, will not cure patients with MDR-TB.



Since 1996, Partners in Health/Socios en Salud at Harvard Medical School has been providing treatment in the shantytowns of Lima, Peru. Their program of individualized treatment administered regularly over a period of two years by employees and community volunteers is a success (curing over 80% of patients) and can be used as an exportable model for MDR-TB care.

The Partnership Against Resistant Tuberculosis: A Network for Equity and Resource Strengthening (PARTNERS) TB Control Program is an international consortium of organizations addressing MDR-TB. This five-year program, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focuses on the control of MDR-TB in Peru and in a prison population in Russia with a goal of developing an integrated program model that can be used in other resource-poor countries.

The principal goals of the project are to—

  • Demonstrate the success of TB control programs that combine DOTS with control of MDR-TB in Peru and Tomsk and take this integrated TB control program to scale in Peru.

  • Define and establish the necessary infrastructure in Peru to sustain a successful integrated program after the project ends; define the parallel infrastructure that will be required to expand and sustain the program in Tomsk after the project ends.

  • Articulate the components of a replicable, generic model, drawing on the lessons from Peru and Russia, for integrated programs that could be replicated in other high-burden countries, and provide a methodology for doing so.

  • Provide strategies and a demonstration platform to strengthen the global TB control effort through lessons from the PARTNERS project.


    		•  In August 2000, The Task Force for Child Survival and Development became one of the seven partners in the PARTNERS TB Control Program. We receive funding from the primary grantee (Partners in Health) to undertake certain responsibilities on behalf of the partnership. In addition to providing financial oversight, we serve as a forum for developing consensus about policy related to the control of MDR-TB and coordinate all activities of the program. This is done by hosting meetings, traveling to field operations of the partners to provide consultation, and conducting video-conferences of the partners to achieve desired outcomes. The Task Force also serves as a representative of the PARTNERS program at international conferences. In addition to being members of the MDR-TB and TB-HIV work groups of the Stop TB Initiative, we are also involved in their communication and advocacy activities.

    CONTACT INFORMATION:
    Mark L. Rosenberg, MD, MPP
    Program Director
    (Task Force Component)

    Alan Hinman, MD, MPH
    Senior Public Health Scientist

    PARTNERS TB Control Program
    750 Commerce Drive, Suite 400
    Decatur, Georgia 30030
    phone: 404-371-0466
    fax: 404-371-1087
    email: PARTNERS@taskforce.org
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