Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria multicountry Eastern Europe and central Asia request for proposal consultation. Improving quality of care and prevention of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Eastern Europe and central Asia (2018)

While decreasing trends in tuberculosis (TB) incidence and mortality rates represent major achievements in TB prevention and care in the WHO European Region and eastern Europe and central Asia (EECA), the still alarmingly high rates of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) and of TB/HIV coinfection continue to be of high public health concern. The European Region includes 9 of the 30 countries worldwide with the highest multidrug-resistant TB (MDRTB) burden. In 2016, an estimated near 20% of new cases and approximately 50% of previously treated cases had rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB)/MDR-TB. Reportedly, in that same year, only about 40% of RR/MDR-TB cases were diagnosed, leaving many undetected and untreated, with the dire consequences that this entails.

An ongoing Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) multicountry grant, the Tuberculosis Regional Eastern European and Central Asian Project (TB-REP), has been making achievements in contributing to reducing unnecessary hospitalization (percentage and duration), and improving policy and practices by enhancing the degree of people-centredness of TB care. TB-REP has also been improving health financing and human resources mechanisms, and aligning them sustainably.

It is within this overall landscape that the Global Fund launched a multicountry EECA request for proposal (RFP) named: improving quality of care and prevention of DR-TB in eastern Europe and central Asia. It aims to address these challenges, in harnessing a suitable coalition to develop and implement a proposal or proposals.