Tanzania

The ASCENT project in Tanzania

Tanzania is one of the five countries where the ASCENT project is implemented. Over 70 health care facilities in Arusha, Geita, Manyara and Mwanza are participating in the project. Patient and health care workers will make use of digital adherence technologies to support patients taking their TB treatment at home. The first patients will be enrolled mid 2020.

Tanzania has a population of 56 million people and is one of the 30 high burden TB countries in the world, as listed by the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2018 an estimated 142,000 people suffered from TB in Tanzania, making the TB incidence rate per 100,000 people 253. An estimated 1,900 people suffered from multidrug resistant TB. The WHO estimates 38,000 people died of TB in Tanzania in 2018.

“For TB treatment which takes a long period to complete, providing patient centered support has been crucial. Digital adherence technologies (DATs) bring a more robust way to empower patients to take control of their treatment while simplifying the healthcare workers monitoring task in real-time. Tanzania is not new in implementation of these DATs. Banking on the exciting accomplishment of the TB Reach funded DAT project, ASCENT Tanzania is looking forward to gathering even more evidence and testing DAT implementation on a larger scale.”

Baraka Onjare, ASCENT project manager in Tanzania

news & Stories from Tanzania

Tanzania

Randomization ceremony in Tanzania

Monday, February 22, 2021

The ASCENT Tanzania team conducted a randomization ceremony to assign health facilities to intervention arms and standard of care study arms, this is an important milestone that kicks off the ASCENT project in Tanzania. The ASCENT project aims to help tuberculosis (TB) patients to successfully complete their course of treatment, using digital adherence technologies (DATs) and data-driven support interventions, utilizing tools as smart pill boxes.

Tanzania

Riziki: “I encourage any TB patient to use 99DOTS if they can”

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Alex, 35 years, a miner and TB patient in Tanzania, was enrolled on 99DOTS digital adherence technology. Since the start of his treatment, he takes his medication daily. “It made my treatment easier and I wish the same for others.”