INTRODUCING NEW APPROACHES AND TOOLS FOR ENHANCED TB CONTROL (INAT) SUBGROUP

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SUBGROUPS

Public-Private Mix Subgroup


ACSM at Country Level Subgroup


Childhood TB Subgroup


TB and Poverty Subgroup


HRD Subgroup


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MISSION

The sub-group for Introducing New Approaches and Tools (INAT) will ensure that TB endemic countries have access to relevant and timely information and technical assistance to enable the rapid evaluation and introduction of new tools, policies and approaches for TB prevention and control. INAT will ensure that researchers and product developers have access to relevant and timely information from TB endemic countries to enable targeted research and the establishment of an evidence base that will support development of appropriate new tools and enable their rapid introduction.

BACKGROUND

Considerable momentum has been building in recent years towards the development of new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines to facilitate the control of tuberculosis. While the promise of these new tools is encouraging, they must be used in programmes before any public health benefit can be realized. Based on the experience of other communicable diseases, it was recognized by the Stop TB Partnership Board that there could be considerable delays between the availability of new tools and their use at country level. In response, the Board established the "Retooling Task Force" (RTF) in 2006 as a means of working across the new tools and implementation working groups to address this challenge. The RTF was asked to identify the potential challenges to the rapid up-take of new tools and to create a framework that would assist development partners and countries to accelerate the introduction of new tools.

At an open meeting held by the RTF at the Union Conference in Cape Town, over 100 country representatives and implementing partners reiterated the need for more information on the new tools in the pipelines and technical support for planning their implementation. Further, countries noted the immediate need for assistance for the implementation of many new policies and approaches (e.g. new diagnosis algorithm for TB in high HIV settings). Concern was raised that the technical support partners are ill-prepared to assist countries in the planning and implementation of new tools and approaches.

In response to this demand, the sub-group for Introducing New Approaches and Tools (INAT) was established by the Stop TB Partnership as part of the DOTS Expansion Working Group. Its members include representatives from country programme managers, diagnostic and field experts international technical partners and donor agencies.

Reference Documents