The UCT Lung Institute partnered with the City of Cape Town Health Department for several World TB Day outreach activities. While TB continues to be a key health concern in South Africa our communities are largely not well informed around the symptoms, treatment, spread and prevention of TB.

Help-seeking behaviours remain low in our resource limited setting. Patients may be required to wait for for assistance and much work has been done by the City of Cape Town to improve this. It is not uncommon for patients to have to decide between paying for a travel fare to a clinic or buying food for the day. As a direct result, adherence to TB medication remains of great concern. For these reasons, we are collaborating with the City of Cape Town Health facilities to deliver our education awareness services directly to the community.

We have conducted four community outreach World TB Day events. As part of our collaboration, City Health provided testing services for TB, HIV, substance use, family planning and blood pressure monitoring. The UCT Lung Institute presented a selection of health literacy resources and our Community Advisory Board (CAB) worked hard volunteering on the days of these outreach activities. The UCTLI CAB engaged with the involved communities to discuss TB and research, about busting research myths and encouraging participants to attend clinics for testing. Research literacy pamphlets with unique numbers were offered to the participants who attended informal talks from CAB members. Lucky draws are always a highlight for the attendees, and the UCT Lung Institute provided 2 food hampers as lucky draw prizes for each event. The UCT Lung Institute team was also able to support community members who came for testing with either a bowl of warm food or a logo-printed shopper bag (depending on which event they were attending). Our UCT Lung Institute team also presented a formal research talk, aimed at encouraging health awareness and responsibility, sensitizing community members to research, and motivating communities to break the stigma around TB.

We are grateful to our hard -working Community Engagement team and CAB members for making an impact which requires both dedication and consistency. The UCTLI also wishes to thank the the City of Cape Town and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (GATB) for helping to make these World TB Day events a success.