Between 2011 and 2019, WHO has developed and issued evidence-based policy recommendations on the treatment and care of patients with DR-TB. These policy recommendations have been presented in several WHO documents and their associated annexes, including the WHO Consolidated Guidelines on Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment, issued by WHO in March 2019. The policy recommendations in each of these guidelines have been developed by WHO-convened Guideline Development Groups, using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach to summarize the evidence, and formulate policy recommendations and accompanying remarks. The present WHO Consolidated Guidelines on Tuberculosis, Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment includes a comprehensive set of WHO recommendations for the treatment and care of DR-TB. The document includes two new recommendations, one on the composition of shorter regimens and one on the use of the BPaL regimen (i.e. bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid). In addition, the consolidated guidelines include existing recommendations on treatment regimens for isoniazid-resistant TB and MDR/RR-TB, including longer regimens, culture monitoring of patients on treatment, the timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in MDR/RR-TB patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the use of surgery for patients receiving MDR-TB treatment, and optimal models of patient support and care. The guidelines are to be used primarily in national TB programmes, or their equivalents in Ministries of Health, and for other policy-makers and technical organizations working on TB and infectious diseases in public and private sectors and in the community.

The WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis. Module 2: screening – systematic screening for tuberculosis disease is an updated and consolidated summary of WHO recommendations on systematic screening for tuberculosis (TB) disease, containing 17 recommendations for populations in which TB screening should be conducted and tools to be used for TB screening. TB screening is strongly recommendations for household and close contacts of individuals with TB, people living with HIV, miners exposed to silica dust, and prisoners. In addition, screening is conditionally recommended for people with risk factors for TB attending health care, and for communities with risk factors for TB and limited access to care (e.g. homeless, urban poor, refugees, migrants). General population screening is recommended in high-burden settings (0.5% prevalence or higher). Symptoms, chest radiography (CXR), and molecular WHO-recommended rapid diagnostic tests for TB are recommended as screening tools for all adults eligible for screening. Computer-aided detection programmes are recommended as alternatives to human interpretation of CXR in settings where trained personnel are scarce. For people living with HIV, C-reactive protein is also a good screening tool. This guideline document is accompanied by an operational handbook, the WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis. Module 2: screening – systematic screening for tuberculosis disease, that presents principles of screening, steps in planning and implementing a screening programme, and algorithm options for screening different populations.

The aim of this operational handbook is to provide practical guidance on the implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) policy recommendations on the prevention and management of TB in children and adolescents under programmatic circumstances and at different levels of the health system. The practical guidance aims to inform the development or revision of national policies and related implementation guidance (e.g. handbooks, standard operating procedures) on the management of TB in children and adolescents. This handbook can also help countries adequately plan for the uptake of interventions to better address the specific needs of children and adolescents with or at risk of TB. It can contribute to national efforts to build capacity among national and subnational programme managers and among health workers at all levels of the health care system. The target audience for this handbook includes NTPs and other child health programmes that provide care for children with or at risk of TB, including maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health programmes, HIV services, and PHC programmes. The handbook also targets paediatricians and other health care workers (HCWs) in the public and private sectors, school health services, civil society and community-based organizations, and health care educators.

Digital Adaptation Kits (DAKs) are part of WHO’s SMART guidelines initiative. This aims to ensure that the content of WHO’s evidence-based guidelines is accurately reflected in the digital systems being used at country level. The DAKs provide software-neutral, operational, and structured documentation based on WHO recommendations related to clinical care, health systems and use of data, to systematically and transparently inform the design of digital systems. Standard components of each DAK include: (1) linked health interventions and recommendations; (2) user personas; (3) user scenarios; (4) business processes and workflows; (5) core data elements mapped to standard terminology codes (e.g. the international classification of diseases); (6) decision support; (7) programme indicators; and (8) functional and non-functional requirements.

Infection prevention and control activities are amongst the key components envisaged by the End TB Strategy to curb the tuberculosis (TB) burden worldwide. This handbook provides practical advice on how to implement the WHO recommendations on TB infection prevention and control within the clinical and programmatic management of TB, using a public health approach. The guidance emphasizes the importance of building integrated, well-coordinated, multisectoral actions across all levels of health care and other settings where there is a high risk of M. tuberculosis transmission. It shares best practices and experiences and provides checklists and job aids to support the implementation and monitoring of actions to cut transmissions, and promotes an implementation hierarchy of interventions across all settings as an integrated package. The target audience for the handbook includes policy-makers at national and subnational level; programme managers for TB, HIV and noncommunicable disease programmes; managers and clinicians at inpatient and outpatient health care facilities; managers at various congregate settings; occupational health officials; engineers; medical practitioners; frontline health care workers; and other key stakeholders in the public and private sectors.