Bruno Marchal and Ariadna Nebot Giralt contribute to better TB care in Georgia
Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Georgia is a well-kept secret even to avid travelers. Even less people would associate the country of nearly four million inhabitants with the Institute of Tropical Medicine, mainly because…well, it is not exactly tropical. Yet, ITM’s Bruno Marchal and Ariadna Nebot Giralt are engaging with Georgian health professionals and policy-makers to improve the care for tuberculosis (TB) patients.
Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Georgia is a well-kept secret even to avid travelers. Even less people would associate the country of nearly four million inhabitants with the Institute of Tropical Medicine, mainly because…well, it is not exactly tropical. Yet, ITM’s Bruno Marchal and Ariadna Nebot Giralt are engaging with Georgian health professionals and policy-makers to improve the care for tuberculosis (TB) patients.
“Georgia changed rapidly after the fall of the Iron Curtain,” explains Prof. Bruno Marchal, Head of the Health Systems Unit in ITM’s Department of Public Health. “The health system underwent a number of dramatic reforms, leading to a full-scale privatisation and deregulation of the health sector.” His colleague Ariadna Nebot Giralt adds, “Private-for-profit providers are responsible for most of the tuberculosis care and prevention. The long treatments that TB patients require are not necessarily a priority for them.”
In order to stimulate the private actors to better engage with TB care, Georgian policymakers have set their hopes on results-based financing (RBF). Georgian partner Curatio International Foundation decided to call in expertise to accompany this process. ITM, as well as the Queen Margaret University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from the UK, joined in for a 48-month research project. Results4TB will assist the government in developing a provider incentive payment scheme for TB. The project runs until 2021 and is funded by the UK Department of International Development, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.
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