24 October 2019 | Geneva - The TB diagnostic pipeline has advanced significantly in the last decade, with promising tools being developed in recent years. Among the newest diagnostic tools emerging from the TB diagnostic pipeline are multi-disease high throughput centralized assays which permit upfront TB detection as well as the identification of isoniazid and rifampicin resistance. The World Health Organization convened a Technical Expert Group to assess the results of an external laboratory validation of four novel centralized TB assays: the Abbott RealTime MTB and MTB RIF/INH assays, the Roche cobas® MTB and MTB-RIF/INH assays, the Hain FluoroType® MTBDR assay, and the BD MAX^TM MDR-TB assay.

7 million people receive record levels of lifesaving TB treatment but 3 million still miss out. TB remains the top infectious killer in the world.

11 October 2019 | Geneva: TB care is a rapidly evolving field with regular updates to policies and guidelines based on newly emerging evidence. WHO and partners frequently receive requests from member states for training curricula to facilitate rapid adoption and adaptation of WHO guidance at country level. This is especially critical given the push for accelerating the TB response to reach the targets in the political declaration of the United Nations high-level meeting on TB by Heads of State in 2018. These are aligned with the End TB Strategy and TB related Sustainable Development Goals.

9 October 2019, GENEVA - The World Health Organization (WHO) convened an Information Session for civil society representatives through webinar to provide an update on the WHO guidelines development process, with a focus on TB guidelines. The webinar was co-organized by WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Programme and Department on Quality, Norms and Standards of the Science Division, with participation from the Office of Compliance, Risk Management and Ethics. The Session was held on 9 October 2019, as part of an ongoing dialogue between WHO and civil society representatives. Over 250 representatives from civil society, partners and other stakeholders registered for the webinar. The information session was opened by Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the WHO Global TB Programme, who reiterated WHO’s close collaboration with civil society over the past years under the leadership of the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is organizing an Information Session for civil society representatives to provide an update on the over WHO guidelines development process, with a focus on TB guideline development.

24 September 2019: Today at the United Nations General Assembly, 12 multilateral agencies launched a joint plan to better support countries over the next 10 years to accelerate progress towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

19 September 2019 | Montreal – The World Health Organization (WHO) Global TB Programme and the WHO Collaborating Centre in TB Research at McGill University, Montreal, Canada convened a two-day technical consultation on research on latent TB infection (LTBI). Around 40 participants attended the meeting representing the TB research community, national TB programmes, civil society, technical and implementation partners, and donor agencies.

Race to End TB campaign launched in Bangladesh by Honourable Minister of Planning Mr M.A. Mannan.

End-users (i.e. policy makers; health professionals, including doctors, nurses and educators working in governmental and non-governmental organizations; TB patients) interested in providing comments on the scope of this guideline update are invited to submit their feedback until 26 September 2019.

I have just returned from a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to review the response to the Ebola outbreak. I was reminded once again that Ebola is just one symptom of a deeper problem: when people don’t have access to health services, or those services are of poor quality or don’t meet their needs, diseases can spread and lives can be lost.