Guidance for the Surveillance of Drug Resistance in Tuberculosis: Sixth Edition

The aim of this document is to assist national tuberculosis (TB) programmes in developing the strongest possible mechanisms of surveillance for drug resistance in TB, building on more than 25 years of global experience. This starts from periodic surveys of sampled patients, moving towards an ultimate goal of 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.