Progress

Since the launch of the Global Plan, there has been a shift in perception among countries about the importance of engaging all care providers and enhancing collaboration among diverse health care providers in various settings.

According to the 2008 WHO Global Report on TB control, 16 of the 22 high TB burden countries (HBCs) had a focal person responsible for managing PPM-related activities in the central unit of the NTP and had undertaken a situation assessment for PPM implementation; 14 had developed national operational guidelines for PPM and 8 had developed training material for private providers. The number of HBCs scaling up PPM interventions more than tripled between 2005 and 2007, from 4 to 14 countries . Currently, more than 16 countries have PPM components in their approved Global Fund grant applications.

Furthermore, during the period of this report, the body of knowledge about PPM has gone from being limited to broad. There is now a wealth of experience from numerous evaluations of small- to medium-sized programmes, and a few scaled up PPM initiatives. A number of tools have also been developed to facilitate rapid adoption and effective implementation of PPM, such as the PPM guidance document and the PPM National Situation Assessment Tool. To raise awareness and also provide a resource for PPM-related information, a new PPM website and a web knowledge management system (the PPM Learning Laboratory) was launched in 2007. This web-based tool serves as a platform for information sharing on PPM.