Photo credit: Tran Dinh Khang // Source: FHI360// Location: Vietnam

Introduction

Vietnam is a high-burden country for TB, with notification rates 43% lower than the WHO’s estimated incidence. To address this, the National TB Program has implemented various approaches, including active case finding (ACF) campaigns aimed at early TB detection through community-level screening, particularly targeting household contacts and key vulnerable populations (KVPs).

Intervention
  • Two ACF community campaign strategies were used with the same algorithm:
    • Routine ACF Campaign aims to expand coverage to all communes in the selected districts.
    • Hotspot ACF Campaign focuses on reaching remote areas within selected districts, bringing services closer to the people.
  • Hotspots were selected among numerous villages based on high TB notification rates from the national TB surveillance system and the reach-ability of these areas.
  • For the Hotspot ACF, battery-powered, ultra-portable Delft Light X-rays with the pre-installed CAD4TB software were deployed to remote villages without the need for a power supply.
  • For the Routine ACF, mobile vans equipped with X-ray machines and AI were used.
Conclusion
  • Utilizing hotspot identification for ACF campaign site selection is effective when resources are limited.
  • Using ultra-portable X-ray machines makes the strategy feasible for reaching villages that have never had TB screening services in their communities.

REFERENCE: Dang. DC. Et al (2024, November 12-16). Targeting village hotspot sites for active case finding in Vietnam: Coporative results in two rural high-burden provinces [Presentation]. The Union World Conference on Lung Health, Bali, Indonesia.