Turning Crisis Into Opportunity:

Strengthening Local Health Systems

Mercy Corps has achieved remarkable success in strengthening Pakistan’s public health systems to better fight the scourge of tuberculosis (TB). What started as small, local programs are now having a tremendous positive effect nationwide, with stunning cure rates and a vastly improved ability to continue providing sustainable, long-term care to the Pakistani people.

After a devastating earthquake in 2005, Mercy Corps helped displaced people, including these children, get back on their feet. We distributed school supplies and built temporary classrooms so their education could continue. Photo: Jackie Lee/Mercy Corps

TB has become an intractable public health issue in many countries. Each year, two million people – 98 percent of them from the developing world – die from this very contagious, but curable, bacterial disease. Complicating the issue is the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains, which arise when patients fail to complete treatment regimens.

Mercy Corps is building the capacity of Pakistan’s existing public health facilities to cure this grave disease. We work with community organizations, providing staff training and technical mentoring to help them design their own solutions and set their own goals for TB case detection and cure rates.

Our campaign follows the World Health Organization’s directly observed therapy short-course (DOTS) protocol, in which community health workers observe treatment in patients’ homes to ensure the regimen is completed, slowing the spread of drug- resistant cases.

Collaborating closely with national and global TB entities, we ensure that our programs contribute to larger efforts to address this devastating disease. By working alongside the people we serve, supporting and expanding local solutions, we are helping communities create the lasting change they wish to see.

Our program was launched in 2004, with special outreach to youth and women. We employed health workers to meet with women one-on-one, teach them about TB, encourage them to seek early medical help and support them during treatment.

These efforts to control TB have been so successful that the government of Pakistan has declared Mercy Corps the lead agency for TB control in Balochistan and Sindh provinces. We work through 65 government diagnostic centers that are helping to detect more cases, reduce the prevalence of the disease and prevent further transmission.

This year, 229,243 patients received TB care from Mercy Corps-supported government facilities in Pakistan. Our success rate is an impressive 88 percent and the impact on the larger community is substantial: our TB programs are enhancing the productivity and well-being of approximately 6.5 million men, women and children. In addition to fighting the disease, we believe that enabling people to remain healthy and productive helps prevent future potential causes of conflict and poverty.