On 12 October the ETTI Working Group was delighted to host an advocacy event at the 2017 Union in Mexico. The event called "Evidence: Build it, Use it and Advocate" was a resounding success with forty-five people actively participating in the event. Dr. Paul Jensen looked at different points of transmission for intervention and discussed the goal of the ETTi working group to develop a research agenda to fill gaps in TB Transmission knowledge. This research agenda would be shared widely with various stakeholders to gain widespread support. Dr. Jensen shared a novel graphic showing the TB Transmission cycle a copy of his presentation is shown here (add a link) to the ETTi website.
Dr Nicola Zetola's presented on Towards TB elimination in high-burden communities: one neighborhood at the time - evidence from Botswana, Dr Nicola Zetola, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zetola’s presentation focused on the TB transmission in two different populations, one rural and the other urban and documented where TB was located vs where it was potentially spread.
Finally David Bryden from Results US looked at "How to be heard!" the advocacy around TB. Dr. Bryden had a dynamic interaction with the audience present on how to advocate for a cause by identifying who holds power over a situation and how to influence that power. He also discussed how allying with others such as Pastors or messaging about TB to children could be approaches to removing the stigma often encountered even within families over TB disease and transmission. More insights from the advocacy meeting will be shared in upcoming newsletter(s).