Engaging with the private healthcare sector for the control of tuberculosis in India: cost and cost-effectiveness.

Background: The control of tuberculosis (TB) in India is complicated by the presence of a large, disorganised private sector where most patients first seek care. Following pilots in Mumbai and Patna (two major cities in India), an initiative known as the 'Public-Private Interface Agency' (PPIA) is now being expanded across the country. We aimed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of scaling up PPIA operations, in line with India's National Strategic Plan for TB control.

Tapping private health sector for public health program? Findings of a novel intervention to tackle TB in Mumbai, India.

Background: India carries one-fourth of the global tuberculosis (TB) burden. Hence the country has drafted the ambitious National Strategic Plan to eliminate tuberculosis by 2025. To realise this goal, India's Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) and partners piloted a novel strategy to engage private-providers for tuberculosis care via a "Private-provider Interface Agency" (PPIA) in Mumbai and other locations.

The potential deployment of a pan-tuberculosis drug regimen in India: A modelling analysis.

There is increasing interest in future, highly-potent 'pan-TB' regimens against tuberculosis (TB), that may be equally effective in both drug-susceptible and rifampicin-resistant (RR) forms of TB. Taking the example of India, the country with the world's largest burden of TB, we show that adoption of these regimens could be: (i) epidemiologically impactful, and (ii) cost-saving to the national TB programme, even if the regimen itself is more costly than current TB treatment. Mathematical modelling suggests that deployment of a pan-TB regimen in 2022 would reduce the annual incidence of TB in 2030 by 23.

Map, know dynamics and act; a better way to engage private health sector in TB management. A report from Mumbai, India.

Background: India, world's leading Tuberculosis burden country envisions to End-TB by optimally engaging private-sector, in-spite of several unsuccessful attempts of optimal private sector engagement. Private Provider Interface Agency (PPIA), a new initiative for private-sector engagement, studied the private-sector networking and dynamics to understand the spread, typology of providers and facilities and their relations in TB case management, which was critical to design an intervention to engage private-sector. We report the observations of this exercise for a larger readership.

Initiative for Promoting Affordable and Quality Tuberculosis Tests (IPAQT): a market-shaping intervention in India.

A majority of patients with tuberculosis (TB) in India are diagnosed and treated in the private sector. Yet, most private providers do not use most recent WHO-endorsed microbiological tests such as liquid cultures, line probe assays and Xpert MTB/RIF due to a combination of factors such as lack of awareness, misaligned incentives and high prices that are unaffordable for patients. We designed a market-based approach to transform a high-price, low-volume market equilibrium into a low-price, high-volume equilibrium to improve the uptake of these tests.

Enhancing financial security of female sex workers through a community-led intervention in India: Evidence from a longitudinal survey.

Introduction: Community-led organizations (COs) have been an integral part of HIV prevention programs to address the socio-economic and structural vulnerabilities faced by female sex workers (FSWs). The current study examines whether strengthening of community-led organizations and community collectivization have been instrumental in reducing the financial vulnerability and empowering FSWs in terms of their self-efficacy, confidence, and individual agency in India.

Data And Methods: This study used a panel data of 2085 FSWs selected from 38 COs across five states of India.

Tuberculosis treatment in the private healthcare sector in India: an analysis of recent trends and volumes using drug sales data.

Background: There is a pressing need for systematic approaches for monitoring how much TB treatment is ongoing in the private sector in India: both to cast light on the true scale of the problem, and to help monitor the progress of interventions currently being planned to address this problem.

Methods: We used commercially available data on the sales of rifampicin-containing drugs in the private sector, adjusted for data coverage and indication of use. We examined temporal, statewise trends in volumes (patient-months) of TB treatment from 2013 to 2016.

Rolling out new biomedical HIV prevention tools: what can be learned from Avahan, the India AIDS initiative?

More than 30 years after HIV was first identified as a disease, with disastrous consequences for many subpopulations in most countries and for entire populations in some African countries, it continues to occupy centre stage among the world's many global health challenges. Prevention still remains the primary long-term focus. New biomedical tools such as pre-exposure propyhlaxis (PrEP) and treatment hold great promise for select groups such as key populations (KPs) who are critical to transmission dynamics, and serodiscordant couples.

How the Avahan HIV prevention program transitioned from the Gates Foundation to the government of India.

Developing countries face diminishing development aid and time-limited donor commitments that challenge the long-term sustainability of donor-funded programs to improve the health of local populations. Increasing country ownership of the programs is one solution. Transitioning managerial and financial responsibility for donor-funded programs to governments and local stakeholders represents a highly advanced form of country ownership, but there are few successful examples among large-scale programs.

Learning about scale, measurement and community mobilisation: reflections on the implementation of the Avahan HIV/AIDS initiative in India.

Debates have raged in development for decades about the appropriateness of participatory approaches and the degree to which they can be managed, scaled and measured. The Avahan programme confronted these issues over the last 7 years and concludes that it is advantageous to manage scaled community mobilisation processes so that participation evolves and programming on the ground is shaped by what is learnt through implementation. The donor (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and its partners determined a standard set of programme activities that were implemented programme-wide but evolved with input from communities on the ground.

Bisexuality, sexual risk taking, and HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men accessing voluntary counseling and testing services in Mumbai, India.

Objectives: To describe sociodemographics, sexual risk behavior, and estimate HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevalence among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Mumbai, India.

Methods: Eight hundred thirty-one MSM attending voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services at the Humsafar Trust, answered a behavioral questionnaire and consented for Venereal Disease Research Laboratory and HIV testing from January 2003 through December 2004. Multivariate logistic regression was performed for sociodemographics, sexual risk behavior, and STIs with HIV result as an outcome.

Men who have sex with men in India: a systematic review of the literature.

This study systematically reviews the existing literature on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in the men who have sex with men (MSM) in India. After a comprehensive literature search of Medline (1950-June 2008), Embase (1980-June 2008), and the Cochrane Library (1950-June 2008), 12 published studies met the inclusion criteria. The link between sexual identity and sexual behavior is a complex phenomenon strongly embedded in a very specific context in India.

Men who have sex with men and transgenders in Mumbai, India: an emerging risk group for STIs and HIV.

Background: Men who have sex with men and transgenders are an important risk group for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). They have risky sexual behaviors but low risk perception.

Objectives: To assess the sexual behavior, STIs, HIV and identify factors associated with HIV in men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgenders (TGs) in Mumbai.

Alcohol use by men is a risk factor for the acquisition of sexually transmitted infections and human immunodeficiency virus from female sex workers in Mumbai, India.

Objective: We investigated whether men who were under the influence of alcohol when visiting female sex workers (FSW) were at greater risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Study: A cross-sectional analysis using baseline data from a randomized controlled trial of an HIV prevention intervention for high-risk men in Mumbai, India.

Results: The overall HIV prevalence among 1741 men sampled was 14%; 64% had either a confirmed STI or HIV; 92% reported sex with an FSW, of whom 66% reported having sex while under the influence of alcohol (SUI).

Utility of pooled urine specimens for detection of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae in men attending public sexually transmitted infection clinics in Mumbai, India, by PCR.

Pooling urogenital specimens for the detection of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae by nucleic acid amplification tests is an attractive alternative to individual testing. As pooling can reduce the costs of testing as well as labor, it has been advocated for use in resource-poor settings. However, it has neither been widely adopted nor evaluated for use in developing countries.