Border Consultants Team Up to Do "Technical" Work

A new organization called the Border TB Consultants Association aims to increase continuity of care and improve treatment regimen adherence in the management of cross-border TB cases with Mexico. "Even though we already have formal agreements with the border states and sister cities [in Mexico], we want to do more to implement these agreements," said Charles Wallace, Ph.D., M.P.H., Texas state TB controller.

The organization intends to put its emphasis on technical and practical issues, not political ones. "The idea is basically to do away with as much top-down politics as possible," said Miguel Escobedo, M.D., Texas regional public health director and head of JUNTOS, a cross-border project in El Paso. Some at the binational group, Ten Against TB --- which includes Mexican and American officials, nongovernmental organizations and TB experts -- consider the new group a break-away effort. On the contrary, said Escobedo: "We want to complement what Ten Against TB is doing, not take away from it," he declared.

At its first meeting on June 30, Border TB Consultants will work on bylaws and goals, talk about an upcoming pilot of a binational TB card, and discuss new case management protocols devised by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. For now, the group plans to limit its scope to Texas' southern border. And it hopes to engage not just TB controllers, but program managers, physicians, and others who work with TB.

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