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Workshop on ProTEST Lessons Learned
top TB Partnership Communiqué Issue No.29 February
2003-03-19

The ProTEST Lessons Learned workshop, held 3-6 February 2003 in Durban, South Africa, was attended by some 70 participants, including national TB and HIV/AIDS programme managers, development and technical agency representatives, and ProTEST coordinators. The main objective of the meeting was to document the lessons and experiences acquired through the ProTEST pilot projects in Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia and to translate this knowledge into recommendations for future expansion of collaborative TB and HIV programme activities. The key lesson from the ProTEST sites presented at the workshop was that collaboration between TB and HIV/AIDS programmes is feasible and helps to improve general health services delivery through capacity development, staff motivation, better referral networks, and more efficient use of resources. The interventions offered in ProTEST - intensified case-finding, IPT, and CPT - are shown to be of individual benefit and should be offered within a package of care for HIV-infected individuals; however, further work is needed to demonstrate the extent of the impact they are likely to have on the TB/HIV burden. A behavioural study is under way, and the cost-effectiveness analysis, although yet to be completed, suggests that the interventions are likely to be cost-effective. Standardised tools for monitoring and evaluation of future TB/HIV collaborative activities were seen as a priority and are under development. The lessons learned presented at the workshop informed the countries on how to develop their own packages of care and prevention within the expanded scope of TB/HIV collaborative activities. The workshop was coordinated by WHO/HQ and the WHO Regional Office for Africa (TUB & RPA), in collaboration with the South African Medical Research Council, and was supported by the National Department of Health, CDC-GAP, United States Agency for International Development, and WHO. The presentations given at the workshop are available on the web site http://www.who.int/gtb/TBHIV/Durban_feb03/index.htm; a full report will be made available on the website shortly, further information is available from Dr Alasdair Reid, Stop TB Department, WHO Geneva (reida@who.int). (Source: Stop TB Partnership Communiqué Issue No.29 February 2003).

The ProTEST initiative was conceived and developed by WHO, as a response to the unprecedented scale of the epidemic of HIV-related TB. Its aim was to develop,  through operational research, a district based strategy for a joint TB and HIV programme approach to the problem. The approach entails the promotion of HIV counselling and testing as an entry point into a package of interventions aimed at reducing the dual burden of HIV/TB.

The ProTEST Lessons Learned workshop, held 3-6 February 2003 in Durban, South Africa, was attended by some 70 participants, including national TB and HIV/AIDS programme managers, development and technical agency representatives, and ProTEST coordinators.

The main objective of the meeting was to document the lessons and experiences  acquired through the ProTEST pilot projects in Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia and to translate this knowledge into recommendations for future expansion of collaborative TB and HIV programme activities. The key lesson from the ProTEST sites presented at the workshop was that collaboration between TB and HIV/AIDS programmes is feasible and helps to improve general health services delivery through capacity development, staff  motivation, better referral networks, and more efficient use of resources.

The interventions offered in ProTEST - intensified case-finding, IPT, and CPT - are shown to be of individual benefit and should be offered within a package of care for HIV-infected individuals; however, further work is needed to demonstrate the  extent of the impact they are likely to have on the TB/HIV burden.

A behavioural study is under way, and the cost-effectiveness analysis, although  yet to be completed, suggests that the interventions are likely to be cost-effective.  Standardised tools for monitoring and evaluation of future TB/HIV collaborative activities  were seen as a priority and are under development.

The lessons learned presented at the workshop informed the countries on how to  develop their own packages of care and prevention within the expanded scope of TB/HIV collaborative activities. The workshop was coordinated by WHO/HQ and the WHO  Regional Office for Africa (TUB & RPA), in collaboration with the South African Medical  Research Council, and was supported by the National Department of Health, CDC-GAP,  United States Agency for International Development, and WHO.

The presentations given at the workshop are available on the web site http://www.who.int/gtb/TBHIV/Durban_feb03/index.htm; a full report will be made available on the website shortly, further information is available from Dr Alasdair Reid, Stop TB Department, WHO Geneva (reida@who.int). (Source: Stop TB Partnership Communiqué Issue No.29 February 2003).

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