Strengthening the transportation network to improve diagnosis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: role of postal services

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) has been acknowledged as one of the major public health concerns, being present in all the nations and has the potential to affect people from all age groups. Ensuring prompt diagnosis of TB is an essential step to improve the prognosis of the patients and minimize the development of complications. To accomplish the set targets under the end TB strategy, the diagnostic arm in TB control activities needs to be immensely strengthened and expanded. We have to ensure that the quality of the sample remains the same during the transport, especially in those regions where reference laboratories are present in distant locations. In conclusion, in the battle against TB, there is an immense need to strengthen the diagnostic services to enable early detection and prompt initiation of treatment. However, the same becomes a major challenge in resource-constrained settings, especially for making a diagnosis of multidrug-resistant-TB. This calls for the need to explore alternative options to expedite the process and roping in the postal network have emerged as a feasible and effective mechanism to overcome the existing challenges.

Keywords

• ethiopia; nepal; postal; referral; tuberculosis