Our “supporting national TB control programmes” team will be hosting an expert stakeholders meeting in Leiden, The Netherlands, on 24th October. The team, led by PHE, has obtained up-to-date information on the development and implementation of national TB action plans and strategies across the EU/EEA by means of a web-based survey, with a 100% response rate from the 31 EU/EEA member states.
The survey results have been used to inform a systematic review of reviews of interventions for TB control and prevention in countries with low to medium TB incidence. Look out for a peer-reviewed publication which is currently being finalised.
The work package team is also looking at evidence of barriers and facilitators to the implementation of TB control programmes in EU/EEA countries, and they have started the quality assessment phase for the final pool of articles that meet inclusion criteria.
Among next steps will be the expert stakeholder meeting in Leiden in October, which has been timed to coincide with The Union conference being held nearby in The Hague.
At the meeting, evidence will be summarised and collated to assist EU/EEA member states develop or improve their TB control and prevention strategies or TB action plans.
The meeting will involve representation from national TB programmes from EU/EEA member states and key stakeholder groups and will seek to build consensus of priority components of national TB plans and strategies, as well as potential implementation steps for these plans and strategies.
The team is also putting together a TB strategy toolkit which will aid national plan development or refinement using expert views and cumulative EU/EEA member state experience, summarised evidence on priority components and barriers and enablers for their implementation.
Any queries on the expert stakeholder meeting and this work package’s activities can be directed to the team via Fatima.Wurie@phe.gov.uk.
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