Mavluda Davronova, a 22 year old teacher from northern Tajikistan began training as a volunteer to help people in her community who have tuberculosis, a contagious disease. 

She was trained by the USAID Eliminating Tuberculosis (TB) in Central Asia project. TB remains a leading cause of death among infectious diseases in Tajikistan and also carries a social stigma because of its links to poverty and the migrant workforce. 

“I have wanted to join the volunteer movement since I was young, when I first observed the work of different volunteer groups in our district.”

Within weeks, Mavluda started attending volunteer training sessions that covered TB detection and treatment, and the social aspects of TB, such as counselling for treatment commitment and countering TB stigma and discrimination.

Currently, one hundred volunteers cover five districts in Tajikistan’s Sughd Region and conduct information awareness campaigns, screen close contacts of people with TB and monitor the treatment process of TB affected individuals. 

In addition, since March 2020, these volunteers have provided the public with information on COVID-19 prevention - reaching about 650 people per week. 

Overall, the project screened almost 12,000 people during the first eight months, of which they referred over 800 for testing, resulting in 43 confirmed TB cases.

Volunteers also offer social support to families and individuals affected by multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). MDR-TB is a strain of TB caused by mismanaged or incomplete treatment, resulting in a type of TB that does not respond to typical anti-TB drugs. 

Mavluda now visits weekly with Roziyakhon Imomuddinova, a 50 year-old single mother, to deliver TB drugs and observe her treatment. She has had MDR-TB since 2017 and only started treatment a few months ago.

Roziyakhon stated, “Mavluda’s visits, and her presence in my life during the treatment, makes me feel that I’m not alone. It is really important for me. I have had a very difficult life and no strength to fight the disease, but the volunteers convinced me to start treatment, promising to be by my side the whole way.”