Suubi Trust

Grania, a VSO, is leading our work at the TB Lab; the following is taken from her blog…

Finally! It’s great when a plan comes together, and, after quite a bit of work and waiting, a Big Plan has finally come together…

A few months ago, official funding for our MOT validation study was cut. This meant that we couldn’t pay for the trial to prove that MOT (the new test for diagnosing TB) would work in Uganda, and especially if it would work in patients who also had HIV.

The importance of this is that TB in patients with HIV is harder to diagnose, and often the tests that work in non-HIV patients are not as good in HIV patients.

So, I decided to try my hand at fundraising.

But as I soon found out, without validation data it is hard to get people, especially the Ugandan Ministry of Health, to trust and start using the MOT test. The first attempt was fairly futile, wandering down Kampala’s UN Alley, sitting in lovely air-con offices, being told politely in various ways “No, Sorry!” So I began to look further afield and made some enquiries with a few UK TB charities. From this, I received some promising feedback from one called Target TB.

As a complete novice at fundraising and not knowing where to start when writing a proposal, I hooked up with the hospital’s fundraiser, Máiréad (a fellow Norn Irish lass – there’s a large Northern Irish mafia here.) She helped to show me how fundraising proposals should be approached, and on researching the Target TB goals we quickly realised we needed to expand our proposal beyond just the trial. Over a cup of tea we planned out an ambitious idea to try and revolutionise TB care here. Máiréad worked her magic and made these tentative plans written on the back of an envelope sound exciting and feasible and the proposal was sent.

I was feeling slightly pessimistic, expecting a letter saying “Thank you for your enquiry, but….” But instead we kept passing the phases of proposal acceptance, and at the end of April Target TB had their final meeting with the Board of Directors. We found out shortly after that they have accepted our grant proposal, want to come into partnership with the IMF TB project and even better are giving us the full amount we asked for… £46,600!

So what is all this money paying for? Well, to begin with it will cover the validation trial so that we can convince the Ministry of Health to accept the MOT culture method. And it will also contribute to the scientific evidence behind this method. Once the trial has been completed (which we are hoping will be by the end of the summer) the really exciting stuff starts – the plan on the back of an envelope to establish a dedicated TB nurse service.

In the UK, most TB care is administered by specialist TB nurses. These nurses ensure that every patient has a smooth path through the diagnostic period, is allowed time to have the diagnosis and the importance of taking the medication explained to them, and is given access to someone approachable to turn to if they encounter any difficulties. It has been consistently shown to improve the quality of TB patient care, and importantly reduces the amount of people who stop taking their medication (putting them at risk of multi-drug resistant TB).

We will be setting up this TB nurse service in line with the new IMF outreach project, which will be offering HIV testing, treatment and care to the underprivileged population of Namuwongo district living around the hospital.

I really feel that with this grant we have an opportunity to make a difference to TB care in Uganda, and importantly we’ll be pioneering a new method of managing TB, in the underprivileged first and then to the fee-paying patients in the hospital. It’s going to involve a huge amount of work (I am the principal investigator for the trial), so I’ve now got to get everyone organised and ready to go for July. Then I have to start the relevant nurse training as there is no equivalent here – we’ll be starting from scratch. I’m looking forward to the challenge!