Policies and partnerships that created a model TB Control Program in El Salvador

This presentation outlines policies, partnerships and management that resulted in the creation of an international model TB Control Program in El Salvador. We identify both supportive and challenging variables that enabled El Salvador to develop this successful program and highlight the lessons learned that can benefit other regional countries. Information is compiled from the authors' personal working experience in El Salvador. Data are drawn from a 2000 to 2006 literature review of El Salvador's Minister of Health national health reports, bilateral and multilateral international organizations and NGOs working in El Salvador. We analyze the roles of political will, health reform, the private sector, universities, the prison system and the international partnerships in creating this model. Although El Salvador is a middle to low income country, it is currently implementing all elements of the new 2006-2015 WHO/STOP TB strategy with success, which includes strengthening TB and HIV/AIDS collaborative activities. It has been able to significantly increase TB curative rates in a short period of time, and is among the countries with the lowest percentage of Multi-Drug Resistant-TB. El Salvador has established a foundation for a sustainable National TB Program. Achievements in this TB program can benefit other regional countries in their fight against TB. There is also a need for an integrated regional response to tuberculosis in Latin America and the United States in order to control the impact of increasing mobile populations affecting Central America, Mexico as well as the United States.