Tuberculosis should become a priority in the general trend towards health system reform as currently we have all leverages to change the situation with the epidemic in Ukraine for the better!
This statement was voiced by Andriy Klepikov during the press conference at UNIAN news agency held on 24 February 2017, which was aimed at discussing patient-oriented models of TB care. The executive director of Alliance also mentioned that there is a vital need to support transition to the outpatient models of TB care delivery and increase treatment efficiency. Unfortunately, today only about 40% of patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are successfully cured. This indicator may be increased up to 80% and more thanks to the social support of patients so that they do not stay alone with their disease and life problems. Within its pilot projects, Alliance for Public Health proved that the combination of medical, social and psychological support allows doubling treatment success rate for patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
To sum it up, Andriy Klepikiv said that he welcomes scaling up government commitments to finance the response to tuberculosis in 2017: only budget to procure drugs will amount to half a billion hryvnias! At the same time, the most important task today is to guarantee that as compared to the previous years money will be spent for the most effective TB treatment models. From its side, Alliance as one of the key partners of the TB-REP regional project, contributes to the cooperation with all stakeholders in terms of implementation of patient-oriented approaches in response to the crisis situation with TB in Ukraine.
On behalf of the government, representative of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, acting Head of Public Health Department, Natalia Piven thanked civil society organizations for their active involvement into the response to the TB epidemic in the country and underlined that currently efforts are underway to re-focus on evidence-based medicine and outpatient models of TB care. Piloting of those models is stipulated within the TB-REP project and is included to the concept of the National TB Program 2017-2021.
Head of TB Prevention and Treatment Unit of the Public Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Iana Terleieva informed that 8 thousand cases of MDR-TB are detected in Ukraine annually – in every fifth case of newly diagnosed patients and in every second case in patients with recurrent conditions. Besides, a focus was made on the main advantages of patient-oriented approaches: better treatment success rates as compared to those patients who are treated in in-patient healthcare facilities and cost efficiency due to re-allocation of funds to cover patients’ needs. Iana Terleieva underlined that it is very important to unite the efforts of governmental and non-governmental organizations!
The press-conference with participation of governmental institutions and civil society organizations was organized by Ukrainians against TB NGO within the TB-REP regional project (TB in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Project on Strengthening Health Systems for Effective TB and DR-TB Control). The Project is aimed at reforming TB care system as part of general health system reforms and provides technical support to TB projects of civil society organizations in 11 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan). The Project is implemented with financial support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the principal recipient of the Project is Center for Health Policies and Studies (PAS Center).