Long et al. Infect Dis Poverty (2021) 10:41 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40249-021-00828-1 EDITORIAL Open Access Scale-up of a comprehensive model to improve tuberculosis control in China: lessons learned and the way forward Qian Long1, Fei Huang2†, Shi‑Tong Huan3† and Yan‑Lin Zhao2* Background the challenges of TB control in China continue to include Te World Health Organization’s End TB Strategy an increase in MDR-TB patients; poor patient adher- (2016–2035) sets the goal of ending the tuberculosis (TB) ence to TB treatment, particularly MDR-TB treatment; epidemic, in line with the United Nations Sustainable patients’ difculty in afording TB and MDR-TB care; and Development Goals [1, 2]. In addition to setting indica- low efciency of TB service delivery [3]. tors for measuring the decline in TB incidence and mor- Te National Health Commission (NHC) of China, tality, the End TB Strategy highlights the need to alleviate formerly the Ministry of Health, oversees the national the fnancial hardship faced by many TB-afected families program for TB and MDR-TB prevention and control [1]. Te international community has acknowledged that in China. With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates progress toward universal health coverage with a “whole Foundation, the NHC has, since 2009, developed an system” approach will be fundamental to achieving the innovative program to strengthen TB control, and the ambitious goal of ending TB globally. Many low- and China CDC led the implementation. Tis program, the middle-income countries with high TB burden struggle “China National Health Commission and Gates Founda- to aford and acquire new tools (e.g., new technologies tion TB Prevention and Control Project” (China-Gates and drugs for diagnosis and treatment) and adapt their TB project), was carried out in three phases, from 2009 health systems to strengthen TB control. to 2019 (Fig. 1). China has the third-highest burden of TB and second- In the context of deepening China’s health system highest burden of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) reform, the China-Gates TB project introduced new poli- globally. Yet between 1990 and 2010, the prevalence rate cies, tools, and service delivery approaches to improve of smear-positive pulmonary TB in China declined sig- the diagnosis and treatment of TB and MDR-TB. Phase nifcantly [3]. Tis achievement was largely attributable I, which was carried out in four cities between 2009 to nationwide coverage of a World Health Organization– and 2011, centered on the introduction of new tools to recommended directly observed treatment, short-course improve TB (particularly MDR-TB) diagnosis, treatment, (DOTS) strategy that was implemented through a vertical and patient management. Te tools included a variety of TB control program led by the Chinese Center for Dis- new diagnostics (e.g., molecular tests) that were more ease Control and Prevention (China CDC) [3]. However, sensitive, and prompt for diagnosis, made standardiza- tion of MDR-TB diagnostic and treatment packages more feasible, and opened the doors for use of electronic medi- *Correspondence: [email protected] cation monitors (EMMs) to improve treatment adher- † Fei Huang and Shi‑Tong Huan co‑frst author ence of TB patients. 2 National Center for Tuberculosis Control and Prevention, China CDC, No.155 Changbai Road, Changping District, Beijing, China In February 2013, the NHC issued Decree No. 92, Full list of author information is available at the end of the article which describes the process of integrating TB clinical © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ publi cdoma in/ zero/1. 0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Long et al. Infect Dis Poverty (2021) 10:41 Page 2 of 4 Phase I: Validation Phase II: Demonstration Phase III: Scale-up 2009-2011 2012-2015 2016-2019 Validation of Demonstration in Scale-up to 3 techniques 3 cities provinces 65 million CNY 68 million CNY 124 million CNY Fig. 1 China National Health Commission and Gates Foundation TB Prevention Control Project phases, 2009–2019 services and patient management into China’s tiered Overview of the fndings health service delivery system. At the same time, basic Duke Global Health Institute and Duke Kunshan Uni- medical insurance schemes were expected to be a pri- versity (a Chinese-American partnership of Wuhan mary source to pay for TB care in the hospitals. With the University and Duke University), as a third party, led transition to a more integrated and collaborative TB con- the monitoring, learning, and evaluation of Phase III of trol model in China, Phase II of the project (2012–2015), the China-Gates project. Te evaluation team consisted which was implemented in three prefectures in eastern, of collaborators from Peking University, Fudan Univer- central, and western provinces of China, demonstrated sity, Zhejiang University, and China CDC. Te evalua- how to ensure that innovative diagnostic, treatment, tion team undertook performance-based monitoring, and fnancing approaches for all TB patients could be using routine data from all counties of the three project efectively adapted to the new model. Key fndings from provinces and an in-depth site evaluation in the selected Phases I and II were published in several peer-reviewed prefectures in each province. For each province, two pre- international journals [4–7]. fectures were selected, representing a variety of socioeco- Based on the achievements of Phases I and II, Phase nomic levels. Within each prefecture, two counties were III was kicked of in 2016 in the provinces of Zhejiang, selected using the same criteria; in total, six prefectures Ningxia, and Jilin. Tis phase aimed to expand the com- and twelve counties were involved in the site evalua- prehensive model of TB control at the provincial level tion. Te team applied both quantitative and qualitative and introduce new policies, technologies, and approaches methods for the baseline and fnal evaluation. Quanti- to cope with the challenges identifed in the previous tative data collection included a patient survey with TB phases and thus improve the performance of TB con- and MDR-TB patients, a survey with TB professionals, an trol in China. Phase III centered on three domains. Te institution-based survey for TB-designated hospitals and frst domain focused on strengthening the TB care deliv- local CDCs, as well as routine data from the health infor- ery system, including (a) planning, policy development, mation system in the TB-designated hospitals, medical and advocacy to support scale-up of the comprehensive records of TB and MDR-TB patients, and surveillance TB control model through local government commit- data on TB and MDR-TB diagnosis, treatment, and case ment; (b) capacity-building of TB care professionals management. Qualitative data included data extracted through innovative training approaches; and (c) develop- from local policy documents; qualitative interviews ing a new TB surveillance and information system. Te with decision-makers and key informants from the local second domain focused on improving the quality of TB health authority, health insurance agency, CDC, TB-des- care, including the (a) upgrade of laboratory capacity ignated hospitals, and focus group discussions with TB for TB and MDR-TB diagnostics; (b) standardization of care providers and TB and MDR-TB patients; site obser- diagnosis, treatment, and patient management of TB and vations; and feld notes. MDR-TB; (c) scale-up of using EMMs to improve com- munity-based case management; and (d) introduction of Quality of TB and MDR‑TB care new anti-TB drugs. Te third domain focused on improv- Te quality of diagnosis and treatment of TB and MDR- ing the mechanism for fnancing TB care and included (a) TB signifcantly improved in the project provinces, which introducing multisource fnancing for TB clinical care, is, to a great extent, attributable to the availability and (b) exploring the reform of payment methods for TB clin- accessibility of new diagnostic technologies and stand- ical care, and (c) simplifying the process of medical assis- ardization of treatment procedures. Tere was a nota- tance for patients who are eligible to beneft. ble increase of bacteriologically confrmed pulmonary Long et al. Infect Dis Poverty (2021) 10:41 Page 3 of 4 TB cases and a rise in the proportion of TB and DR-TB of incentives to TB professionals participating in the patients receiving the recommended diagnostic services e-learning [11]. In addition, the pilot of a new TB sur- and clinical treatment at the time of project fnal evalu- veillance system in the project provinces demonstrated ation in 2019 compared to the baseline study in 2016. how the diverse infrastructures of the information system However, irrational use of second-line anti-TB drugs could be reformed to achieve the functions of automatic for TB treatment remained, and varied in magnitude, data extraction and data exchange and better cater to the across the study sites.