Step Up for TB
On the way to achieve the targets set at the UN High-Level Meeting on TB and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), national policies need to align with the international contemporary TB recommendations. This is a consistent and regular process that would benefit by tracking and updating regularly. One such service provided by the Stop TB Partnership to the countries is through the ‘Step Up For TB’ (SUFT) report.
The earlier SUFT 2020 report has been expanded into a comprehensive SUFT electronic web-based portal hosted on the STP website. The portal is expected to assist countries to appraise their progress for implementation of TB policy and guidelines against the global recommendations. The SUFT portal allows countries to login and update their information at their convenience. Thus, countries have the possibility of knowing their most recent status against their neighbours or their region, or globally. The e-portal is designed with user-friendly features. The access is easy (please see below). After completion of the survey, the country and region factsheets are generated automatically; the country and regional trendlines can also be seen for a defined period for certain indicators. New features could be easily added to this e-portal.
The countries can also know their status on the dashboard of the portal as soon as they update their data. The updated status of all countries would be always available on the portal. The portal would send regular reminders to the countries to update their status if they have not already done so.
Priority areas
The overall SUFT report comprises of 25 policy indicators related to three domains of diagnostics, treatment and care, and prevention. The current survey of 2021/22 covers only those indicators that were unanswered or had scope for improvement after the last full scale survey in 2020. To keep up with the global recommendations, the indicators would change in the future.
Access to the portal
Steps for National TB Programs for access to the portal –
1. Go to https://suft.stoptb.org/
2. Each country has its own username and password. Username is the email address of NTP’s choice; password is automatically generated and emailed to the user. User can also request for password by sending a request to stepupfortb@stoptb.org
3. This opens the window for the country to personalise automatically generated password, update its data, access the country-wise factsheets, trends, raw data and interactive maps based on data available on SUFT portal including the data from previous surveys.
The e-portal allows a 24/7 access to the questionnaire that could also be edited at a later stage. For additional comments or feedback, space has been provided in each section. There is additional space for comments and feedback at the end of the questionnaire.
Other stakeholders can also access the SUFT portal as guests. Guests cannot make any changes but can see the factsheets and trends. Steps for guests to access the portal are -
1. Go to https://suft.stoptb.org/views/login.php
2. Just by entering your email address, you can log in as a guest by clicking on 'sign in as guest.'
3. This opens the window for you to access country-wise factsheets, trends, raw data and interactive maps based on data available on SUFT portal including the data from previous surveys.
Further information
For more information, instructions, and details of negotiating the SUFT e-portal please refer to the following -
Information Sheet
The https://suft.stoptb.org/ is hosted on the Stop TB Partnership website.