DOTS Supporters

Controlling TB is a community effort. To improve tuberculosis detection and cure rates using the DOTS strategy, every TB patient must have the support of another person. This is the only way to ensure full adherence to treatment. One of the objectives of the TB FREE project is to train 22,400 DOTS supporters nationwide and thereby increase the ratio of treatment supporter to TB patient from 1 to 20 to 1 to 10.

Door to door campaign, Heidedaal Free State Province

Training for the first group of DOTS healthcare workers started on September 20 2004 at a heritage site situated at an historic hospital for communicable diseases, which is also the Centre for the management of multi-drug resistant TB in Gauteng Province. Since training commenced in 2004. To date TBFREE had trained more than 20 000 Community Health care workers as DOT Supporters.