Ethiopia: active case finding

Active case finding is to find, diagnose, and treat and follow up tuberculosis patients in the local communities.
To find out the efficacy of community-based case finding, we did a community randomized trial and cost-effectiveness analysis in south Ethiopia. The trial Ethiopia aimed to evaluate if community health workers could improved smear-positive case detection and treatment success rates (Datiko and Lindtjørn, 2009 and Datiko and Lindtjørn, 2010).
The study showed that involving of health extension workers (HEWs) in sputum collection and treatment improved smear-positive case detection and treatment success rate, possibly because of an improved service access. This finding has policy implications and could be applied in settings with low health service coverage and a shortage of health workers.
Recently, National TB Control Programme in Ethiopia started to decentralize case finding and treatment to local communities (in Ethiopia called kebeles) using community based-treatment by health extension workers.
http://bernt.b.uib.no/2010/04/16/active-case-fining-to-improve-tuberculosis-control/