Operational handbook on tuberculosis. Module 4: Treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment, is a derivative product arising from the guideline on the same topic. This operational handbook is designed to facilitate implementation of the policy at country level. The target audience includes, implementing partners, programme managers, clinicians and other stakeholders engaged in TB care. The 2022 updated version of the operational handbook includes a new section stemming from the most recent round of guidelines development – the recommendation for 6-month regimen, and a new composition of the 9-month regimen for the treatment of DR-TB. Besides, the updated operational handbook includes three new web annexes: Tuberculosis medicines information sheets, management of adverse events and Active TB drug safety monitoring and management (aDSM).

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.

The “WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis. Module 3: Diagnosis - Rapid diagnostics for tuberculosis detection, third edition” is the latest edition replacing the one issued in 2021. A new class of technologies for drug susceptibility testing is endorsed by WHO and included in this edition: targeted next generation sequencing. The operational handbook aims at facilitating the implementation of the WHO recommendations by the Member States, technical partners, and others involved in managing patients with TB and DR-TB. It provides practical information on existing and new tests recommended by WHO, step-by-step advice on implementing and scale-up testing to achieve local and national impact and lastly, model diagnostic algorithms, which are updated to incorporate the latest recommendations. An overview of budgetary considerations and information sheets on each of the newly recommended tests is provided. The class of targeted next generation sequencing is recommended for the detection of resistance to a number of first- and second-line anti-TB drugs, rather than culture-based phenotypic drug susceptibility testing. The recommendations will open for faster detection of resistance to a range of anti-TB drugs directly from sputum samples.

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.

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.

The goal of this brief on screening, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in pregnant women is to provide maternal and newborn health stakeholders and decision-makers with key messages and implementation considerations regarding the 2016 WHO recommendations on antenatal care for a positive pregnancy experience.

With the availability of new emerging evidence on the treatment of drug resistant TB (DR-TB), the WHO has recently updated the DR-TB treatment guidelines by convening a guideline development group meeting in 2019 and then by releasing the WHO Consolidated Guidelines on Tuberculosis, Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment in June 2020. These guidelines include a comprehensive set of WHO recommendations, grouping all new and existing recommendations on the treatment and care of DR-TB in one document. The consolidated guidelines are complemented by an operational handbook which is designed to assist with implementation of the WHO recommendations by Member States, technical partners and others who are involved in the management of patients with DR-TB. The WHO Operational Handbook on Tuberculosis, Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment provides practical guidance on how to put in place the recommendations at the scale needed to achieve national and global impact. The strategies described in the operational handbook are based on the latest WHO recommendations which were formulated by Guideline Development Groups using the GRADE approach. In many cases however, the recommendations in their current form lacked sufficient clinical and programmatic detail, which is important for implementation. This operational handbook complements the guidelines with practical advice based on best practices and knowledge from the fields such as pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, microbiology, pharmacovigilance and clinical and programmatic management.