IOM and the Lao Ministry of Health's National TB Centre have
launched a one-year project to combat tuberculosis (TB) among
ethnic minorities and migrants in Savannakhet and Champasak
provinces.

The USD 200,000 project – "Facilitating National TB
Control Efforts in Mobile and Hard-to-Reach Populations in the Lao
PDR" – is funded by the Canadian International Development
Agency, through WHO's Stop TB Partnership, and will target the
inhabitants of ten remote districts.

"TB is a disease that thrives among the poorest and least
educated in our society. Poor living and working conditions are a
major contributory factor and migrants and ethnic minority groups
are exposed to a particularly high incidence of the disease," said
IOM Regional Representative for SE Asia Andrew Bruce, speaking at
the launch in Vientiane.

"We are targeting Savannakhet and Champasak because both have
large ethnic minority populations and are the provinces of origin
for thousands of Lao labour migrants travelling to and from
Thailand," he added.

 The project will help the National TB Centre to actively
identify TB cases, to improve TB diagnostic capacity, and to
implement public health communication and education campaigns to
help local people to identify the disease and prevent its
transmission.

It will use mobile units to access hard-to-reach populations and
will identify TB cases through health promotion and mass screening.
It will also provide technical assistance to the National TB Centre
to detect, diagnose and treat TB as part of border health
assessments of returned migrants.

It also plans to train laboratory and medical staff to improve
their diagnostic capacity and to improve the implementation of
directly observed therapy (DOTS) programmes for TB patients.

For more information please contact:

Montira Inkochasan

IOM Vientiane

Tel: +856.21.285117

E-mail: "mailto:minkochasan@iom.int">minkochasan@iom.int