You are cordially being invited to attend this important Regional
Workshop on Tuberculosis Services Accessibility in Southern Africa,
to be held in Harare, Zimbabwe from 21 to 22 May 2001.

Tuberculosis being one of the most common killer disease before and
present times once again is in the centre of attention of national
health authorities, researchers as well as donor community as a re-
emerging phenomenon.

With the financial support from International Development and Re-
search Centre (IDRC) in Canada the Biomedical Research and Training
Institute (BRTI) based in Harare has undertaken a study which has
strong public health implications: to find out the determinants of
access to health services by individuals to seek treatment, and to
look into actions taken by health authorities to prevent the disease
or provide timely and appropriate health care to the patients. To
achieve maximum relevance of the study for Southern African Region
four SADC countries were selected where Tuberculosis is a major pub-
lic health problem especially in association with HIV/AIDS - RSA,
Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Research teams of the above mentioned countries have already com-
pleted the study and their individual reports have been consolidated
by the BRTI co-ordination team. Some interesting results and based on
them, useful recommendations are made. Time has come to share these
with other researchers and public health workers in our countries.
BRTI is therefore organizing a dissemination workshop to bring the
study results to other researchers, decision-makers and other inter-
ested parties. The objectives of the workshop will also be to:

* Review the national, regional and global trends of Tuberculosis in-
fection and its impact on the socio-economic development of African
countries.
* Review the study results carried out by each participating country
including country specific recommendations and discuss their rele-
vance for other countries in the Region.
* To review and determine common trends in participating countries
regarding personal and health system related determinants of access
to Tuberculosis services.
* In view of the results achieved, make recommendations to address
challenges of Tuberculosis control in Southern Africa.
* Make recommendations on the optimal use and dissemination of the
results of the study among public health workers involved in
Tuberculosis control as well as decision makers and other
stakeholders.

Being people of the Africa Region countries where Tuberculosis is a
major killer I believe your Ministry will wish to participate in the
workshop by sending 1 or 2 participants who are involved in Tubercu-
losis control. Due to limited funding of this project unfortunately
the workshop budget will only be able to sponsor a very limited num-
ber of delegates mainly from the SADC region. Please we would be
grateful if you can register your interest in attending this workshop
with the convener through contact details given below so that they
may assist in sourcing funding to attend the workshop. However we
hope your Ministry will seek funding from own sources or may approach
other partners for support, such as WHO, which have institutional in-
terest in TB control for any other additional participants.

The tentative venue of the workshop is the Holiday Inn, Harare. You
can download the study background and provisional programme for the
workshop from the AFRO-NETS server (46 kB) at:
http://www.afronets.org/docs/tb-access.doc

On behalf of the local organizing committee I thank you for your con-
sideration and will look forward to see your valuable contribution
during the deliberations of the workshop.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. S. Chandiwana
Conference Convener & Principal Investigator of the Study
Biomedical Research & Training Institute
Centre for International Health & Policy
443 Grasmere Lane, Borrowdale
Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel: +263-4-870-404/5 or +263-11-409-911
Fax: +263-4-870-403
mailto:[email protected]
or
mailto:[email protected]