Consolidated Guidelines

The target audience for these consolidated guidelines consists primarily of NTPs, primary health care (PHC) programmes, maternal and child health programmes, national AIDS programmes (or their equivalents in health ministries) and other health policy-makers. They also target generalist and specialist paediatricians, clinicians and health practitioners working on TB, HIV and/or infectious diseases in public and private sectors, the educational sector, nongovernmental, civil society and community-based organizations, as well as technical and implementing partners.

The objectives of the 2022 consolidated guidelines on the management of TB in children and adolescents are to:

Since the publication of the WHO Guidance for national tuberculosis programmes on the management of tuberculosis in children (second edition) (2014) (8),there have been numerous studies, including reviews, randomized controlled trials, observational studies, pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic studies, qualitative research and cost-effectiveness research, which have evaluated the impact of various interventions.

Unless otherwise specified, the terms defined here apply as used in this document. They may have different meanings in other contexts.

Active (tuberculosis) case-finding: Provider-initiated screening and testing in communities by mobile teams, often using mobile X-ray and rapid molecular tests. The term is sometimes used synonymously with "systematic screening".

The production and writing of the WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis. Module 5: management of tuberculosis in children and adolescents, 2022 was coordinated by Sabine Verkuijl, Annemieke Brands, Kerri Viney and Tiziana Masini, under the guidance of Farai Mavhunga, head of the TB Vulnerable Populations, Communities and Comorbidities unit and the overall direction of Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis (TB) Programme.

The political declaration at the first United Nations (UN) high-level meeting on tuberculosis (TB) held on 26 September 2018 included commitments by Member States to four new global targets ³ , which were subsequently renewed at the second UN high-level meeting on TB on 22 September 2023⁴ . One of these targets is that at least 90 per cent of the estimated number of people who develop TB are reached with quality-assured diagnosis and treatment in the 5-year period 2023–2027³ .

1. Global tuberculosis report 2020. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020 (https://apps.who.int/iris/ bitstream/handle/10665/336069/9789240013131-eng.pdf, accessed 19 February 2021).

2. Uplekar M, Weil D, Lönnroth K, Jaramillo E, Lienhardt C, Dias HM, et al. WHO’s new End TB Strategy. Lancet. 2015;385:1799–801. doi:10.1016/s0140–6736(15)60570–0.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, despite being largely curable and preventable. In 2019 an estimated 2.9 million of the 10 million people who fell ill with TB were not diagnosed or reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). The Political Declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018 at the High-Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis commits to, among other goals, diagnosing and treating 40 million people with TB by 2022.