Forging partnerships to stop TB

Dr. Bradley Aumora is an Internal Medicine Physician attached with the Medical Services Directorate of the Buka General Hospital in Bougainville Province. He successfully attended a short-term JICA health training program on “Ending TB and Response to Health Emergency (Innovation in Health System Development)”. The training was organized by the JICA Tokyo International Centre for nearly 3 months; and inclusively trained participants from 6 other participating countries.

TB is one of the leading causes of admissions and deaths amongst adult patients admitted to the Buka hospital. One of the main challenges faced at the TB Clinic is the discontinuing of treatment at home by many TB patients. This is referred to as treatment adherence and this leads to poor treatment outcomes at the TB Control program level.

From this, Dr. Aumora has focused his Action Plan on his efforts to tackle TB. He and his team are in the process of introducing measures for treatment support and treatment adherence interventions at the TB Clinic. These interventions are derived from the WHO TB Patient Centered Care model and include strengthening counselling and testing; establishing support clinical pathway; adherence assessment tools and strengthening the Patient Treatment Support mechanism in the community.

“Attending the training at the Research Institute of Tuberculosis/Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association was a marvelous experience. There was a lot of exposure to TB Research and unlimited access to a lot of updated and in-depth information. A key highlight at the institute was the opportunity to interact with the training facilitators. senior researchers and professionals. I would recommend this training for other Physicians in PNG, who are closely involved with their own TB Control Programs. The learning process and international exposure is outstanding.” - Dr. Bradley Aumora