REACH Trust believes in building capacity and health quality research that generates evidence advocates for the development of inclusive health policies and practices promoting equity in access to health care, mostly for the vulnerable, poor and marginalized populations in Malawi.

REACH Trust with funding from LHL International in collaboration with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) National TB Control Program (NTP) and Non Communicable Disease Control (NCD) Programme  is implementing a cluster randomized control trial (Triage II Plus) in Dowa and Ntchisi Districts. The trial aims to promote the identification and diagnosis of people with TB and chronic airways disease at primary health care level.  A baseline survey in which mobile technology was used to map the households and collect data has just been concluded.  Data collection has been ongoing for six months from September 2014 to April 2015.  Smart phones were installed with GPS Essentials and other related software to locate selected households as well as interview respondents.

At the end of data collection period, the Research Assistants were given certificates of recognition for the job well done.   
During the certificate award ceremony, Mr. Francis Gausi speaking on behalf of his fellow Research Assistants, he thanked the Trust and the research team for the support during the data collection period. He observed that despite the challenges such as long distances and poor road infrastructure they have learnt a lot and they managed to meet the sample size on time.   

In her speech, Dr. Ireen Namankhoma, Executive Director for Reach Trust, thanked all the Research Assistants for their commitment and resilience.  Dr. Namankhoma highlighted that the results will be widely disseminated and help to influence policy and practice.

Lastly,  Mrs. Rhoda Banda, representing MoH, thanked REACH Trust for implementing the community based survey and hailed the collaboration that is between REACH Trust and MoH .  She indicated that the Ministry is looking forward to learning from the Triage Plus II project.