Investigators: Kefyalew Alene, Archie Clements
External collaborators: Kerri Viney (Australian National University)
Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide, killing more than one million people every year. The burden of TB is distributed unevenly in the world, with the highest incidence of TB being reported in Africa and South-East Asia Regions. Measuring the burden of TB by geographic area is important for TB control programs and health care providers to aid in planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating TB control efforts. Identifying areas where TB is geographically concentrated is particularly important in high TB burden countries such as China and Ethiopia to achieve the goals of the global End-TB Strategy and to inform the rational allocation of resources for targeted interventions. This research project will, therefore, characterise the spatial and temporal distribution of TB as well as social and environmental drivers of both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB in Ethiopia and China.