TB affects the most economically productive age group. In addition to the resultant suffering and loss of workers’ time, TB disrupts work flow, reduces productivity and increases economic burden both on families and the health system. The problem of TB is compounded by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. TB is the most frequent opportunistic infection of people living with HIV/AIDS as well as the most common cause of death among them. In many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, employers find that TB is one of the commonest HIV-related diseases that affect employees. Early detection and adequate treatment of TB will reduce its spread in the general population and bring a significant improvement in the quality of life of all those affected.

In order to have an impact on TB incidence and transmission in any community, it is necessary to detect at least 70% of all estimated cases with smear positive (infectious) pulmonary tuberculosis and to treat successfully at least 85% of them. WHO has set these as targets to be achieved globally by the end of 2005. The CB-DOTS strategy is adopted to achieve these targets.

Uganda is one of the 22 high burden countries in the world. The National TB/Leprosy Programme of the Ministry of Health is responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation of TB control activities in the country. Over 40,000 new TB cases of all forms are detected annually and about half of them are infectious. At the moment, in spite of substantial investment into the strategy of Community Based TB care with Directly Observed Treatment with Short course drugs (CB-DOTS), the case detection rate stands at only 53% and the treatment success at around 60%. Uganda intends to achieve the global targets described above by the end of 2005.While there are sufficient funding opportunities available to the TB control programme, the shortage of human resources and insufficient coordination of efforts may limit the country’s ability to exploit those opportunities.