The overall goal of the TB REACH ‘Improving TB Preventive Treatment among Under-five Children through Engagement of Women’s Indigenous Associations in Ethiopia project is to strengthen Tuberculosis Preventive Treatment (TPT) among under-five children through a women-centered approach.
Our objectives are: (1) To increase TPT initiation rates from 53% to 98% among under-five children in the project zones; (2) To increase TPT completion rates by 50% from baseline. Our target is to screen 4833 contacts and treat 805 under-five children from Yeka sub-city of Addis Ababa and Gamo Goffa zone from SNNPR.
KNCV will deploy a women-led, innovative community-based treatment support strategy through Iddirs (membership-based indigenous local associations of people who have voluntarily entered into an agreement to help each other) to improve initiation and completion rates of TPT among under-fives in two zones of Ethiopia. We will partner with and build the capacity of a local NGO, Love in Action Ethiopia (LIAE), with previous experience in engaging Iddirs in HIV care and other social services. We will employ a rigorous monitoring and evaluation system using control zones to measure the effectiveness of the interventions for future scale up. Empowering women and girls will be an integral component of this project.