Guidance for the surveillance of drug resistance in tuberculosis, sixth edition

Book excerpt: The aim of this document is to assist national TB programmes in developing the strongest possible mechanisms of surveillance, starting from periodic country-specific surveys of sampled patients. The ultimate goal is to establish continuous surveillance systems based on routine drug susceptibility testing (DST). This guidance promotes certain standardized criteria for surveillance to ensure that results are comparable within and between countries over time. The target audience of this document is national TB programmes and, in particular, the coordination team for surveillance ideally composed of the programme manager, a laboratory specialist, a logistician, and an epidemiologist/statistician.