Ubunye's paper: Putting power back into the hands of communities: a model for enabling communities to take the lead in responding to Tuberculosis won the Best Oral Abstract in Track 4: Social and Community Aspects of TB.
The paper described our community-led programme which sees TB Community Champions (TBCCs) working with their neighbours to de-stigmatise TB and ensure they regularly self screen in their households. They support each person who has TB symptoms, through testing, receiving results, getting and getting care and treatment at local clinics. The TBCCs record the number of people who do contract TB and their experiences of care and treatment they receive. This information is reported on a 'Dashboard' which is shared with the whole community via fortnightly WhatsApp messages alongside health messages about TB. This Dashboard is in Isi-Xhosa with voice notes for those that are unable to read. The programme has shown a big change in the way people manage TB in just 2 months!