Deadline: 18 July 2024
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is pleased to announce a call for concept notes, through which they seek to catalyze innovations that can transform community-wide systematic TB screening practices, irrespective of symptoms, making them more likely to be scalable and to promote uptake in high TB -burden settings.
The ICE-Screen TB – Asia project is designed to in part address challenges by supporting programs and innovative implementers enhance the cost-effectiveness of community-wide systematic screening for TB in high-prevalence areas. By integrating advanced screening tools and methodologies, this initiative seeks to create models and associated evidence for cost-effective, scalable screening solutions. They invite teams from eligible countries to submit concept notes proposing innovative approaches to implement, test, and evaluate new TB screening strategies and approaches that are sufficiently affordable and cost effective for countries to scale up.
This investment opportunity aims to galvanize partnerships between programs and researchers to tackle the operational challenges that currently hinder the cost-effectiveness and scalability of community-wide systematic screening. They are particularly interested in concept notes from high TB burden regions in Asia that can leverage existing funded screening projects. Concept notes should focus on making screening more cost-effective, integrating novel tools such as affordable point-of-care (PoC) confirmatory tests, and evaluating the effectiveness of dCXR/AI-based screening compared to mass molecular testing.
Project Goal
- The primary goal of ICE-Screen TB – Asia is to demonstrate highly-cost effective community-wide systematic screening in high TB prevalence areas.
Funding Information
- Successful submissions will:
- Have an estimated duration of up to 3 years, with a budget up to $1.5 million USD.
Expected Outcomes
- Proposals must aim to achieve and measure, at a minimum:
- Total cost per person screened. Population coverage of the community-wide screening program within the catchment area. Increased TB case-finding and treatment initiation, with attributable case ascertainment (i.e. screening program vs. from routine health services)Scalability and integration of new tools into systematic screening services.
Eligibility Criteria
- They will consider funding for applicants who meet the following criteria:
- Collaborative teams including TB programs, implementers, and researchers. Willing to conduct implementation research integrated into an existing, funded community-based screening programs in high TB burden countries of Asia, which are conducing community-based mass screening adults and adolescents, irrespective of symptoms or clinical/demographic risk factors. The primary grantee and scientific leadership must come from high TB burden countries, although international collaborators as funded consortium members are acceptable. >85% of the overall grant funding must be spent in the primary country.
- Projects in Asia, consisting of the following countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, and Nepal.
For more information, visit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
