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Reporting and information deficiencies: a challenge for assessment of healthcare initiatives in Sudan, Dr. Anoud R. Omer and Prof. Asma El-Sony

Anoud R. Omer, Community Medicine Specialist, KSA
Asma El-Sony, Epi-Lab Khartoum, Sudan
Habab Khalid El-Kheir, Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy, Sudan

Purpose: To discuss Tuberculosis (TB) registries deficiencies in Sudan and its effect on informing policy.
Approach: A review exploring the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) registries in 2010.
Findings: During a study to assess TB services at facility levels, NTP registries reported between 2008 and2010 were reviewed. Although crude detection rates were available, disaggregated data by age, gender and socioeconomic status were deficient and almost reported exclusively for smear-positive TB patients. This complicated assessing the external factors that affect TB services. Treatment outcomes reflected smear-positive cases and neglected other TB categories.
Policy implications: Lack of disaggregated data cannot reflect on TB community profile, and limiting reporting to smear-positive cases could not answer questions on true prevalence rates. The NTP needs to consider different TB categories when assessing old policies and/or developing new ones.
Keywords: Tuberculosis; TB registries; Information; Disaggregated data

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Omer, A.R., El-Sony, A. and El-Kheir, H.K. (2016) ‘Reporting and Information Deficiencies: A Challenge for Assessment of Healthcare Initiatives in Sudan’, Int. J. Sudan Research, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.42–48.

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