Blue-light special: DOT lures Russian visitors
But it can only take them so far
Everywhere you turn, yet another group of Russian physicians is visiting the United States, trying to get a handle on the American-style TB control programs the mother country is slowly struggling to adopt.
This summer, in preparation for a launch of several DOTS-Plus programs, one group of Russian docs toured the National Tuberculosis Center in Newark; paid a visit to New York City; stopped off in Birmingham; and spent time in Peru to see a model DOTS-Plus program developed by Partners in Health.
More groups arrived last month seeking Yankee know-how on the subject of directly observed therapy, making stops in New York and Newark before heading out for the country.
In South Carolina and Mississippi, the Russians were scheduled to spend several days touring laboratory facilities, observing patient registry systems, and trailing outreach workers on their daily rounds. "One thing that worries me is that here, we have a lot of advantages they may not," says Carol J. Pozsik, RN, MPH, director of the TB control division of the health department of South Carolina and president of the National Tuberculo sis Controllers Association. "So when we talk about incentives, I plan to emphasize it doesn’t have to be something that costs a lot of money. It could be a bunch of flowers from someone’s garden, or painting a child’s fingernails — all the warm, fuzzy stuff," she says.
That’s true, says Mike Holcombe, MPPA, CPM, director of the TB control program at the Mississippi state department of heath. "We also want to make them understand that DOT can get you a long way, but it can only take you so far. You still have to have mechanisms for isolation, for enforcement, for hospitalization; and then you need expert medical consultation and good labs."
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