Adherence Support with BPaL(M) Roll-Out
The World Health Organization has recently published their updated Consolidated Guidelines on the Treatment of Drug-Resistant TB (DR-TB) and Operational Handbook for DR-TB Treatment.
The BPaLM regimen is included as a new recommendation, and preferred option, for treating people suffering from MDR/RR-TB or pre-XDR-TB – shortening treatment duration, offering better outcomes, and therefore significantly improving the quality of life for people on treatment.
A healthcare providers in Tanzania demonstrating the use of the smart pill box.
Within the guidelines, the WHO states that “missing doses of all three or four drugs in the regimen should be avoided”. For this reason, the inclusion of treatment support in the BPaL(M) roll out is vital: “measures to support patient adherence tailored to patient needs are important to retain patients on treatment and ensure good treatment outcomes. Support should be provided through an effective model of care and measures should include support in the community or at home, social support and digital health interventions for communication with the patient.”
As the Global DAT Task Force we see digital adherence technologies (DATs) as an important support tool to include in country planning for the programmatic B-PaL(M) roll out.
The smart pill box, in particular, offers a person-centric way to support adherence and retain people on treatment, with minimal burden for the person on treatment to log adherence, whilst helping healthcare providers identify people who may need additional support to complete treatment via an adherence platform.
Technical Assistance for DAT implementation
The Global DAT Task Force is fully funded to provide technical assistance to countries in their DAT planning, roll-out and scale up, including:
- Budget development
- Proposal development for the inclusion of DATs in Global Fund applications
- Identifying additional local and global funding streams
- Adherence platform comparison and selection
- DAT implementation assessment
- DAT procurement support
Contact the DAT Task Force via secretariat@tbdigitaladherence.org if you require TA for your country’s DAT implementation.
Downloadable Resources
