Ashgabat, 31 January 2020: Turkmenistan has been allocated US $5,067,499 to fight tuberculosis (TB) and building resilient and sustainable systems for health by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) for the period of 2021-2024.

The Global Fund has been working with Turkmenistan since 2010 to fight TB. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been the primary recipient of the grant. The newly allocated grant is designed to accelerate the progress on sustainable reduction of the burden of TB and focus on interventions that maintain or scale-up evidence-based interventions for key and vulnerable populations, ensuring gender equality and access to TB diagnosis and treatment for all.

Since 2010, Global Fund has disbursed over 25,531,566 USD to fight TB in Turkmenistan.

Within the grants the most innovative, rapid, molecular-based testing methods for TB and accurate detection of MDR-TB have been introduced in all five regions of the country, the coverage with testing for TB and drug-resistant TB increased, more than 3,138 patients with M/XDR-TB disease, including people in prisons have been taken into treatment.

Key capacity development activities have been organized by the sub-recipient of the grant – the World Health Organization. Patients on ambulatory treatment were provided with social and psychological counseling to improve adherence to treatment by the National Red Crescent Society.