USAID Eliminate TB Project
USAID Eliminate TB Project
Overview
The five-year USAID Eliminate TB Project (2020–2025) builds on MSH’s 15-year legacy in Ethiopia’s TB control efforts. In collaboration with KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation and local partners—Amhara Development Association (ADA), Oromia Development Association (ODA), and REACH Ethiopia—the project aims to reduce TB incidence and mortality by enhancing the quality, accessibility, and sustainability of TB services across five regions.
To achieve this, the project focuses on the following strategies:
- Strengthening service delivery across sectors: Improve early TB diagnosis and treatment in both public and private health facilities while reducing unnecessary costs for patients.
- Enhancing targeted case detection: Support the government to align TB case detection efforts with disease prevalence data and introduce highly sensitive diagnostic and screening tools.
- Expanding latent TB interventions: Boost prevention and treatment of latent TB infection as part of a comprehensive disease control approach.
- Promoting sustainability and country ownership: Help mobilize and optimize domestic resources while building national capacity to manage, implement, and report on TB programs.
- Engaging communities and local partners: Collaborate with civil society, community organizations, and private-sector actors to raise awareness, support prevention, and ensure local-level access to care.
Highlights
Resilience Amid Disruption: How Ethiopian Health Workers Sustained TB Services During a U.S. Government Pause
Across Ethiopia, health workers demonstrated extraordinary resilience—drawing on the skills, systems, and tools introduced by the project to sustain essential services, particularly in high-burden regions like Oromia and South Ethiopia.
Enhanced Laboratory Services
By providing modern diagnostic equipment and training, such as GeneXpert machines and digital X-rays, the project has strengthened laboratory capacity, leading to more accurate and timely TB diagnoses. These efforts are impacting the lives and health of countless people like Getu, who recently completed his TB treatment course.
Strengthening Lab Capacity to Save Lives: How MSH is Helping Ethiopia Eliminate TB
A key component of the USAID Eliminate TB Project’s approach is working to increase access to early TB diagnosis and treatment for patients. To do so, the project focuses on expanding and improving laboratory services by providing state-of-the-art GeneXpert machines to health facilities throughout the country and training laboratory technicians on their use.
Harnessing Innovative and Feasible Strategies to Optimize TB Case Finding: High-Load Health Facilities Initiative in Ethiopia
The “High-Load Health Facilities Initiative” in Ethiopia focuses on optimizing tuberculosis (TB) case finding in response to the decline in TB incidence and the challenge of undetected cases. The initiative employs innovative screening tools, such as chest X-ray (CXR), to enhance clinician awareness and training, thereby improving TB detection and treatment coverage.
Join MSH at the 54th Union World Conference on Lung Health
Centered on the theme, “Transforming Evidence into Practice,” and focused on our approaches in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, MSH colleagues will discuss tuberculosis prevention and treatment in post-conflict environments, engagement of local organizations to ensure the sustainability of TB programs, and development of public-private partnerships to elevate TB care delivery. Join us as we focus on converting research into tangible practice and champion evidence-based TB health policies and decision making.
Dr. Daniel Gemechu
Chief of Party
Project Contact
Dr. Daniel Gemechu Datiko has more than 15 years of experience designing, implementing, and managing public health programs and community-based health interventions related to blindness prevention, leprosy, HIV, maternal health, digital health, and tuberculosis. Dr. Datiko previously served as the project director for Challenge TB Ethiopia within MSH-supported regions. He has served as a consultant for the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine UK on designing and implementing community-based TB interventions; for the Stop TB Department in Cambodia where he designed private-sector engagement in TB; and for the World Health Organization in Zimbabwe where he designed and wrote guidelines for targeted mass screening for TB in Zimbabwe. Dr. Datiko has served as leadership at regional and national levels, received and managed grants from international donors, contributed to capacity building by supervising postgraduate students, and published more than 40 articles in peer reviewed journals. Dr. Datiko began his career as a general medical practitioner and has worked closely with the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia throughout his career, including coordination the TB, Leprosy and Blindness Prevention and Control Program for the Southern region of Ethiopia. He holds a PhD in epidemiology and international health from the University of Bergen, Norway.
Donors & Partners
Donors
The United States Agency for International Development
Partners
KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation
Amhara Development Association (ADA)
Oromia Development Association (ODA)
REACH Ethiopia