Consolidated Guidelines

In order to obtain the required information for the indicators described above, a TB recording and reporting system needs to include a minimal set of data elements. Although paper-based systems have been used to collect such data, it is now becoming increasingly feasible to collect data electronically, and this should be the standard aspired to for monitoring TB screening activities. The following strategies can be used to collect the necessary data:

Continued monitoring can help programme managers assess the performance of the TB screening components that are within their purview. The following indicators should be considered for each targeted risk group:

1. the number of people eligible for screening;

2. the number of people screened (considering the first screening and second screening separately, if applicable);

3. the proportion of those eligible for screening who were screened;

4. the number of people with presumptive TB who were identified;

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) (1).

In this section, we consider the monitoring and evaluation required to support the implementation of TB screening programmes. The operational handbook contains more details about the monitoring, surveillance and evaluation of TB screening interventions (7).

This chapter includes current WHO recommendations that apply to children and adolescents on TB prevention. They have been consolidated from current WHO guidelines on TB infection, prevention and control, a BCG position paper and guidelines on TPT, namely the WHO guidelines on tuberculosis infection prevention and control, 2019 update (12), the BCG vaccines: WHO position paper (published in the Weekly Epidemiological Record) (13) and the WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis. Module 1: prevention - tuberculosis preventive treatment (14).

Introduction

Children and young adolescents (aged below 15 years) represent about 11% of all people with tuberculosis (TB) globally. This means that 1.1 million children become ill with TB every year, almost half of them below five years of age. National TB programmes (NTPs) only notify less than half of these children, meaning that there is a large case detection gap (1).

Summary of changes to recommendations as included in the second edition of the Guidance for national tuberculosis programmes on the management of tuberculosis in children, 2014

This chapter includes valid WHO recommendations that apply to children and adolescents in special situations such as for the management of TB in the context of HIV infection or malnutrition and optimal feeding of infants of mothers infected with TB.

Table 7: WHO recommendations on models of TB care relevant to children and adolescents

Table 6: WHO recommendations on TB treatment relevant to children and adolescents