In Uganda’s Karamoja region, district health teams ensure that all health facilities submit weekly epidemiological surveillance reports to the Ministry of Health using an SMS-based platform called MTRAC. This report provides an update on a number of notifiable diseases, including TB testing and treatment.

In November 2019, Uganda’s Minister of Health declared TB a national public health emergency calling on district leaders and partners to mount a national emergency response targeting three regions of Uganda that included Karamoja. In March 2020, USAID local partner PACT Karamoja engaged district biostatisticians to review their district performance in the submission of weekly surveillance data on TB, with the aim of identifying critical gaps and priority actions to address them. Despite Karamoja being a high TB burden region, TB updates were missing in many of the weekly surveillance reports submitted by health facilities.

In May 2020, following the partial easing of COVID-19 national guidelines to allow continuity of critical health services, the USAID PACT Karamoja team, along with the district TB/Leprosy supervisors and biostatisticians, carried out post-training mentorship visits to all facilities in the region, with the aim of improving the compilation and submission of accurate weekly surveillance reports using phones while observing national COVID-19 infection prevention and control measures. These efforts have closed the gap and resulted in a substantial increase in the number of reports including TB data to allow for better performance monitoring and program improvements.

Karamoja region weekly epidemiological surveillance reporting on TB

Image credit: PACT Karamoja