The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria (GFATM) has been supporting programmes to combat HIV& AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in India since 2006. To evaluate the performance of The Global Fund in combating HIV & AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and preventing avoidable deaths, the role of reliable and quality mortality data is critical. However, lack of completeness of the Civil Registration System (CRS) and medical certification of the cause of death, as well as low quality of data from specific disease prevention programmes in India makes it difficult to get an authentic estimate of the causes of death.
In the study, VHAI developed a rapid assessment protocol which was tested to generate data to enable assessment of the impact of The Global Fund assistance on mortality due to HIV&AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The rapid assessment protocol comprised collecting secondary data from a tertiary care hospital, and from disease specific national health programmes in one district in each of five distinct geographic regions of the country. Hospitals were chosen on the basis of their being resource centres for HIV& AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and districts were chosen on the basis of any one of the three diseases. Data were collected for different time periods before and after initiation of The Global Fund assistance in 2006 to measure the change due to the The Global Fund effort.