BNMT hosts successful focus group discussions in IMPACT districts

Posted on: February 21, 2019

As we enter the final year of the IMPACT TB programme, BNMT has hosted focus group discussions in Nepal’s southern districts aimed at understanding and overcoming the challenges to implementing TB projects in Nepal. We invited all project staff and community health volunteers to get involved to share their experiences and exchange ideas on methods of best practice. The main objective of the discussions was to explore the challenges faced by the volunteers and the lessons learned by them during their working period in active case finding in order to incorporate these lessons learned in future projects. One of the significant challenges faced by volunteers during their work in community was that suspected people with TB were not willing to give sputum samples because of identification of TB disease, poor sputum samples by patients. In terms of learning from the project, the volunteers concluded that contact tracing and microscopy camps are very effective in TB case detection as they enable volunteers to have direct conversation with patients, inform people about TB in effective way and maintain confidentiality (between patients and volunteers). GeneXpert machines were very effective to detect TB cases in the community. Their recommendations for improving the program in future include radio broadcasting, street drama, extrinsic awards to the volunteers and longer term projects.

We would like to thank all those who participated for their invaluable contribution.