Optimizing the efficiency of household contact tracing for TB control in South Africa

在结核病患者家庭中进行接触者追踪是一种众所周知的早期发现其他结核病患者的方法。其他好处包括有机会进行艾滋病毒检测，并将艾滋病毒感染者与医疗保健联系起来。这种方法存在一些问题，包括成本高、难以找到家庭成员以及发现结核病的人数不同。南非目前正在对初级卫生保健进行重组。新方法包括提供家庭和社区卫生服务的地方外展小组。我们的项目使用不同的研究方法来开发、实施和评估一个家庭接触者追踪的综合模型，可能会使用新的外联团队。在第一阶段，我们的目标是更多地了解当地的外展团队，并找出方法来帮助实施一个新的综合模式的家庭接触者追踪。在第二阶段，新模式将在南非的三个不同地区实施。在第三阶段，我们将分析我们的数据，看看新的组合模式是否可行，它是否能找到其他患有结核病的家庭成员，并允许有机会对艾滋病毒进行检测，并将艾滋病毒感染者与医疗保健联系起来。我们还将收集新模型的成本。

Contact tracing in a household of person with TB is a well-known method for finding other people with TB earlier. Other benefits include the opportunity for HIV testing and linking people with HIV to health care. There are problems with the approach including high costs, difficulties with finding household members and differences in the number of people with TB found. Primary health care is currently being reorganised in South Africa. The new approach includes local outreach teams that deliver home and community based health services. Household contract tracing could be combined into these new teams.Our project uses different research methods to develop, implement and evaluate a combined model of household contact tracing, potentially using the new outreach teams. In Phase I we aim to understand more about the local outreach teams, and find out ways to help implement a new combined model household contact tracing. In Phase II, the new model will be implemented in three different districts in South Africa. In Phase III we will analyse our data to see if the new combined model is practicable, and can it find other household members with TB and allow an opportunity to test people for HIV and link people with HIV to health care. We will also collect costs of the new model.