US$13.9 million in new funding announced for TB REACH Wave 4 projects

The  funding will support a fourth wave of 33 new projects in 24 countries that seek to innovate and find the missing TB patients among some of the most underserved settings with poor and vulnerable population groups. The projects were selected on a competitive basis from more than an unprecedented 500 letters of interest.

Among the projects approved are 11 that will be implemented by small community-based organizations. The approved projects have a number of new approaches focussing on mining-affected communities, children, migrants and incarcerated people.

"On World TB Day this year, we are focussing attention on how to reach the three million people with TB who are missed by public health systems. TB REACH is a key mechanism in specifically targeting the millions who become ill with TB but are not provided with quality care. TB REACH’s latest wave of funding will allow us to accelerate efforts to find innovative ways of reaching the unreached, and significantly reduce TB deaths, especially among the poor and vulnerable,” said Dr Suvanand Sahu, Team Leader for TB-REACH.

TB REACH is an initiative of the Stop TB Partnership that supports partners to find missing TB patients and to get them access to treatment in high burden settings with a particular emphasis on the poor and the vulnerable. It acts as an innovation platform for care delivery models. TB REACH projects through their outreach and active case finding interventions have focused attention on the three million TB patients who are missed every year by public health systems globally.

The Stop TB Partnership Secretariat would like to thank the Government of Canada and UNITAID for the generous contribution in funding to support the TB REACH initiative.