Bishkek – On February 8, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) handed over the 2,200 copies of a new textbook about tuberculosis (TB) to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Science. This is the first student oriented textbook with TB data and analysis relevant to the Kyrgyz Republic and Central Asia. The textbook is aligned with international best practices and contains the most up-to-date information on this deadly disease.

The books will be distributed among six educational institutions throughout the country: the Kyrgyz State Medical Academy, the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, the Osh State University, the Kyrgyz State Medical Institute of Retraining and Advanced Studies, and the Scientific Medical Library of the Minister of Health.

Over the past three years, USAID worked with a team of authors, two of whom are Kyrgyzstani and one international expert, to support the development of the new book that addresses country and regional specificities to consider in treating and combating TB. The USAID Defeat TB Project invested over $60,000 in the development and printing of the textbook.  Until now, Kyrgyz medical schools were utilizing an outdated manual to study the disease.   

Despite falling morbidity and mortality rates, TB remains a serious epidemic in the Kyrgyz Republic with 5,500 new cases and 400 deaths every year.  USAID works with the Kyrgyz Government to limit the spread of the disease through modernization of laboratories, adopting new treatment models, providing social support for patients, and reforming the health system for improved TB services.  This new textbook will help improve the knowledge base of medical students throughout the country, and thus enable medical providers to access up-to-date data and information for detecting and treating TB in the country.