Request for Proposals: Communication Campaign Development

BACKGROUND

Vietnam is among the 30 countries with the highest burden of TB. The overall estimated prevalence of bacteriologically confirmed TB in Vietnam was 322 per 100,000 in the 2018 prevalence survey. Though Vietnam’s TB prevalence has declined, the rate is not rapid enough to enable the country to end TB by 2030. The national strategy has three main goals: reducing TB incidence by 90 percent, reducing TB mortality by 95 percent, and reducing patient catastrophic costs to zero. In 2021 and early 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic, in Vietnam as is other countries, resulted in a significant decline in TB notifications compared to the same timeframe in prior years.

Indeed, TB is a not only one of the top infectious killers in the world, but it remains a heavily stigmatized disease. Indeed, for many in Vietnam, being diagnosed with TB is very shameful, and means potentially being excluded from communities, losing their job, or for those who already suffer from a chronic disease, adding to their health burden.

TB treatment is long and leads in most cases to rapid improvements of the symptoms, which drives many patients to end treatment too early. In turn, this contributes to developing forms of the disease that are drug resistant. Treatment for drug-resistant TB is a lot more invasive and costly. In brief, TB is a very complex disease that poses unique challenges to health systems. Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) has an important role to play to promote key behaviors, which are essential to contribute to ending TB.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Support to End Tuberculosis (SET) project’s overarching goal is to support the Government of Vietnam (GVN) to successfully detect, treat and prevent TB. The five-year project will support the GVN in the ambitious effort to end TB in Vietnam by 2035, defined as reducing the TB burden, reducing deaths due to TB, and eliminating patient catastrophic costs from this disease. USAID Support to End TB is implemented by FHI 360 in partnership with the National TB Program (NTP).

Prevention is an essential component of the fight against TB. This is particularly true for family members living with a person diagnosed with TB, who are also called ‘household contacts’. Having all household contacts tested and take TB Preventive Treatment (TPT) are the key behaviors needed for successful prevention. In Vietnam, TB prevention behaviors, both among health professionals and household contacts, are insufficient and need to be strengthened. Health workers have a key role to play in TB prevention, as they need to be motivated to conduct contact investigation and follow-up on it, and they need to be convincing towards household contacts, who might include children and their parents, to have them agree to get tested and, when applicable, to take TPT. Male and female household contacts, because of their different social roles and the expectations that derive from them, have different drivers of behaviors, and may therefore need specific messages that are tailored to them in order to improve TB prevention behaviors.

SCOPE OF WORK

FHI 360 is looking for creative agencies that can craft messages and design communication materials that resonate with the different audiences based on the elements provided in this brief, and to design, test and produce communication materials. More details in the attached RFP.

Requirements: see attached file.

Timetable and Address for Submission 

Submit questions: 5 PM DATE 20 June 2024 to [email protected] with a copy to [email protected], [email protected]. Responses to questions and queries (if any) will be posted on the designated link no later than 5 PM, 25 June 2024.

Submit proposal: Proposal in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or PDF format must be e-mailed to [email protected] by 5 PM DATE 5 July 2024, with subject line “SET TB prevention Campaign”

Q&A Sheet