Tuberculosis Regional Eastern European and Central Asian Project (TB-REP) mid-term update (2017)

The Tuberculosis Regional Eastern European and Central Asian Project (TB-REP) on strengthening health systems for effective tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant TB prevention and care is a three-year project that began in 2016. The project focuses on accelerating TB prevention and care by removing health system barriers and scaling up health system reforms by catalysing and supporting interventions in 11 eastern European and central Asian countries.

The mid-term update report presents the milestones achieved and the initial results obtained in terms of sustainable high-level advocacy for effective TB prevention and care, roadmap development, country cooperation and capacity-building. These include:

• high-level advocacy actions helped convey the importance of strengthening health systems for TB in project countries;
• with technical support from WHO/Europe, civil society organizations in project countries developed project-relevant advocacy strategies;
• project countries nominated high-level national focal points to coordinate and implement TB-REP;
• national working groups were established to guide countries and consolidate partners’ efforts in building new models of TB care;
• a tailored WHO training on health system strengthening for improved TB prevention and care – the first of its kind – was designed and conducted to support project partners in transforming their national TB services delivery models;
• WHO developed a blueprint on people-centred TB care that is now being adapted to national contexts.

TB-REP is funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and implemented by the Center for Health Policies and Studies of the Republic of Moldova as the principal recipient and the WHO Regional Office for Europe as the technical lead agency, in collaboration with partners.