MessageWiz Project - Why?

The global humanitarian and economic cost of Tuberculosis (TB) is staggering.   The impact is particularly high in developing countries where poverty, poor nutrition, housing conditions, and lack of basic healthcare contribute to the spread of TB.  TB in turn causes lower economic earnings leading to more poverty and poorer nutrition.   TB is estimated to lower the incomes of the world's poorest citizens by $12 billion. Each year over 2 million people die from the disease, making it one of the leading infectious causes of death among young people and adults.   Combined with HIV, TB is exceptionally deadly, accounting for approximately 13% of AIDS-related deaths per year.  One third of all HIV positive individuals develop TB. As HIV rates have soared in Africa, so too has TB.

Currently the best method for treating TB is directly observed therapy, short-course (DOTS).  In this method, TB patients are observed taking their medications by a health professional or occasionally, a family or community member for the first two months of treatment.   The following 4 to 6 months patients usually administer their own antibiotics.  During this period of unsupervised treatment some people default on treatment leading to higher treatment failure rates.   Higher treatment failure rates in turn lead to further spread of disease, especially in countries with a high prevalence of TB.  In some areas these problems have led to implementation of 6 to 8-month DOTS programs that have been very successful, however high costs and disruption of the patient's lives have limited the settings where this has been applied.   Many countries have not been able to fully implement DOTS, and even if they officially claim countrywide DOTS coverage are unable to monitor all of the TB patients for the full period