Webinar: Improving Access to Tuberculosis Diagnostic Services through Geospatial Mapping and Data Analysis

Join us for a USAID Infectious Disease Detection and Surveillance (IDDS) project webinar on improving access to tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic services through laboratory network analyses.

Following the World Health Organization’s recommendation for high TB burden countries to use rapid molecular tests as the initial diagnostic for TB, countries are facing the questions of how much testing capacity is enough and where that testing capacity will have the greatest benefit. IDDS uses the Laboratory Network Spatial Analysis—a methodology that combines geospatial analysis with population and epidemiology data—to determine current testing capacity and locations and identify scenarios for national TB programs to increase access to rapid molecular testing instruments. To date, eight analyses have been completed and five are underway. IDDS will soon begin training national TB programs to conduct their own analyses, including following up on IDDS-completed analyses.

During this webinar, IDDS and national TB program partners will share their experiences using the Laboratory Network Spatial Analysis. IDDS will discuss key data sources, how they are used, and how countries can adopt the methodology. National TB program partners will describe the steps taken using the recommendations to improve access to and capacity for rapid testing.

IDDS is a five-year project that operates in more than 20 countries in Africa and Asia where there are significant gaps in health systems’ ability to detect, track, and rapidly respond to infectious diseases and drug-resistant infections that pose a major threat to public health and global health security.

Speakers:

Michael “Moe” Moore, TB Strategic Lead, IDDS

Claire Lay, Data Analytics Senior Scientist, IDDS

Herbert Mutunzi, Senior Diagnostics Specialist, IDDS, Zimbabwe

Amy Piatek, Senior Tuberculosis Technical Advisor Bureau for Global Health, USAID

Soe Htut Aung, Program Specialist, IDDS, Burma

Laurel MacMillan, Principal Technical Specialist, IDDS

Ramon Basilio, Department Head, National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, Research Institute of Tropical Medicine, Philippines