Nepal Anti-TB Association (NATA) Key ZTB Partner in Nepal

Nepal Anti-TB Association (NATA) is a nonprofit organization that has been fighting TB across Nepal since 1953. NATA has a National Reference Lab for TB. It has sites in nearly half of the country’s districts and takes a multidimensional approach to TB control and prevention, including community mobilization and education, operational research, and public-private partnerships. NATA is also gender-sensitive, such as by proactively seeking the participation of mothers’ groups and featuring four women on its Board. Examples of its integrated service delivery (ISD) include providing both nutrition support and vocational training to people with drug-resistant TB and running general laboratory and X-ray tests in its lung health hospital and DOTS clinics. These facilities are well-equipped with diagnostic technology like Digital Radiography X-rays and Ultra Sonography, a state-of-the-art lab with facilities for molecular diagnostics, culture and DST, and Line Probe Assay and polymerase chain reaction test for various pathogens. NATA routinely works with international researchers; it has already collaborated with the WHO, IUATLD, RIT Japan, and Nuffield Institute UK on TB surveillance projects, and is a sub-recipient of a Global Fund award to fight DR-TB.