Innovative Tuberculosis Case Finding Interventions: Lessons From the Field

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Background

The World Health Organization (WHO) End Tuberculosis (TB) Strategy aims to end the global TB epidemic by 2035. According to the 2020 Global TB WHO report, it was estimated that 9.9 million people fell ill with TB, however just 5.8 million cases were reported, displaying an 18% decline in the number of reported cases from the previous year. The observed decline is partially attributed to the disrupted access to TB diagnosis and treatment services due to the demanding nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, which consequently resulted in an increase in TB deaths.

One of the most critical challenges in TB control is finding and targeting missing cases. Failing to close a gap in case findings/research is likely to impede progress towards meeting the Global End TB milestones. In order to achieve the goals of the Global End TB Strategy, it is critical to ensure that all TB cases are diagnosed timely and appropriate treatment is provided. Wider implementation of case finding strategies, particularly across high TB burden countries have transformed diagnosis and control: from contact investigation ,facility level systematic TB screening, house to house TB screening, new WHO approved TB diagnostic tests being made available at different levels of coverage, and new drugs and regiments in the pipeline. Where all these contribute to the feasibility of TB eradication, the continued and extensive success of these interventions depends on a multitude of factors, including having the provisions in place that allow case reporting and recording to be accurate and feasible for all. It is important to understand the effectiveness of different interventions in different settings, as well as the effect of the burden of other unprecedented health emergencies. This approached focused on supporting the accurate diagnosis and control of TB will help to achieve the End TB Strategy aims by 2035.

Considering these points, this Research Topic aims to gather submissions that consolidate experiences in the implementation of both existing and innovative interventions that will contribute to improving and further advancing accurate TB diagnosis, reporting, and control globally. This topic also welcomes submissions that will assist programs in designing innovative interventions which can be applied in wider contexts, including community based interventions, facility based systematic TB screening, contact investigation, amongst children, young people and adults with and without communicable diseases [i.e. HIV-TB coinfection] in both high burden TB regions (i.e. Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific) as well as low burden TB regions that have effectively diminished the disease.

Keywords: TB case finding, contact investigation, community TB, Diagnostics

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