TITLE:
The Use of Sputum Dashboard and Dispatch Riders in Mitigating Delay in Sputum Samples’ Processing—Evidence from an Intervention in Lagos State, Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Muse Olatunbosun Fadeyi, Akinwumi Akindele, Adebayo Bakare, Bolaji Ahmed, Osman El-Tayeb, Taofeekat Ali, Yasir Othman, Obioha Udunze, Gbolahan Dairo, Aderonke Agbaje
KEYWORDS:
Sputum Samples Dispatch Rider, Electronic Dashboard, Sputum Logistics, Tuberculosis
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Tuberculosis Research,
Vol.9 No.3,
August
12,
2021
ABSTRACT: The act of referring TB
presumptive individuals after verbal screening to another health
facility/diagnostic centres for testing often results in large loss to
follow-up, owing to the many barriers people face in accessing care. The
transportation of sputum samples is an efficient method of increasing access to
tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics in areas where testing is not currently
available. One of the major reasons for the low yield of TB cases in the field
was delay in sputum sample transportation to diagnostic laboratories among
other factors. Damien Foundation Belgium, carried out a unique sputum riders
initiatives in 20 LGAs of Lagos state between Q3-2019 and Q4-2020. A total of
25 sputum dispatch riders across the 20 LGAs in the State who are monitored
routinely on an electronic dashboard were engaged for sputum logistics.
Therefore, this report highlights how the initiatives havecontributed to increased TB case notification in a
densely populated metropolitan city in Nigeria. Overall, 48,265 units of sputum
samples were transported to the laboratory from the facilities 99.9% of results which were received from the
laboratory by the dispatch riders. The contribution of sputum riders to the overall TB
case detection by the project progressively increased from 9% when the
intervention began to 57% as at Q4 2020. The transportation of sputum samples
by motorcycle dispatch riders is an efficient method of increasing access to TB
diagnostic services in communities where testing is not currently available.