Patients on tuberculosis treatment are likely to be hit by US President Donal Trump’s withdrawal from funding health programmes outside America. This is after one of the largest network of community-based organisations that funds TB treatment and research in East Africa, EANNASO (Eastern Africa National Networks of AIDS Service Organisation) withdrew its funding.

On Wednesday evening EANNASO suspended an initiative that has become critically synonymous with the gains that have been made in the TB response efforts across the region.

Evaline Kibuchi, the Stop TB Partnership, Kenya Head, expressed unease in the turn of events saying that the many TB-related interventions that benefit from this grant are likely to lose the gains already made.

“These include community based interventions like addressing stigma and discrimination, case-finding, community awareness, awareness-creation among others,” she said, pointing out that if the grant is not resumed, the country is likely going to see those gains eroded.

Challenge Facility for Civil Society (CFCS) has become the leading mechanism for local TB community organisations and people affected by the disease, and also fills a gap that not many other initiatives can do.

Kibuchi also describes this grant facility as a critical remedy where the meagre resources cannot manage to cater for the thousands of TB patients who need interventions. “It has consistently delivered impact with relatively low levels of investment,” she told People Daily yesterday.

Critical mechanism

Steve Anguva, the National TB Champions Network Coordinator, listed a number of TB response interventions that will suffer from last week’s US move.

“It’s true that a number of interventions will be affected. For instance, sample networking both sputum and blood work for Drug-Resistant TB, capacity building for health workers, TB Data management and Platform and System and digital chest X-rays with Artificial Intelligence, will be interrupted,” he said.

Other services to be affected according to Anguva include some components of research work on TB, Programmatic Management (PMDT) of DR TB, and Peer Educators and TB Champions who work as Linkage Assistants.

The CFCS is also the mechanism that serves as an enabler for Global Fund TB country grants and the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility advancing access to quality TB services, through efforts of community engagement, demand creation for TB tools, advocacy for domestic financing, community-led monitoring for accountability and stigma reduction.