Operational Handbooks

2.2.2 Planning and budgeting to implement or strengthen household contact investigation

Contact investigation to identify children, adolescents and other household members with TB disease and to identify those who will benefit from TPT should be a standard component of all national TB programmes. Contact investigation is good public health practice and essential to address and manage several infectious diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

2.2.1 Prioritizing household contacts

Household contacts of people with PTB are a well-recognized group at risk for TB infection and TB disease, including prevalent TB detected at the time of initial contact investigation and incident TB that occurs within the subsequent 2–5 years (15). WHO recommends that household contacts and other close contacts of people with PTB should be systematically screened for TB disease (14). Contact investigation can be implemented at the health facility, in the community or through a combination of these approaches.