Developing and testing community-based tuberculosis (TB) screening intervention to increase TB referral case detection and knowledge among sexual minority people in urban Bangladesh: a mixed-method study protocol

摘要

Although Bangladesh is a country of generalised tuberculosis (TB) epidemic, the HIV prevalence is low among general populations, and 3.9% among key populations. Despite the high possibility of HIV–TB coinfection, scientifically tested approaches for increasing TB case detection among sexual minority people are yet to be developed and implemented in Bangladesh. Such approaches could foster service delivery linkages between communities and the government health system. Findings of this experimental research are likely to provide new insights for programme managers and policy planners for adopting a similar approach in order to enhance TB referral, thus ultimately increasing TB case detections and reducing the likelihood of TB-related mortalities and morbidities, irrespective of HIV status.