Evaluation of House-to House Active Tuberculosis Case Finding Contribution to TB Case Notification in 10 States in Nigeria

Objectives: This article examines the contribution of the house-to-house active TB case strategy to TB case notification in ten Nigerian States. Methodology-The study involved all Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the selected ten States in Nigeria. There was desk review of laboratory and facility registers for referrals from the community house-to-house intervention. Data collection process included engagement of Community Based Organizations(CBOs) and TB workers(CTWs) in the LGAs of the ten states, mapping of slums and hotspots with high potentials for TB cases, followed by sensitization and awareness creation in communities to provide accurate information on TB. House-to–house active case search, sputum collection from presumptive TB cases was done for diagnosis and linkage of positive persons to DOTS clinics for TB treatment. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The excel 2016 version was used to provide basic analysis of frequency distributions of important variables, proportions and percentages for qualitative variables and results presented in tables and graphs. Data from source documents were integrated to generate the contribution of ACF to the state TB notification. Results: This strategy increased TB case notification by 45% in the ten states and between 5274% in three of the ten states. Conclusion: The house-to-house search strategy has shown to be an effective approach in finding the missing TB cases in the slum communities in Nigeria over the passive approach. Scale-up is needed to increase TB case notification in Nigeria.