WHO Global Task Force on TB Impact Measurement
What is the Task Force doing to fulfil its mandate?
The Task Force has agreed on three major strategic areas of work that need to be pursued to fulfil its mandate, and a related 13-point policy package that defines what needs to be done at national and international level.
The three strategic areas of work are:
- Implementation of at least one survey of the prevalence of TB disease in 21 global focus countries, of which 12 are in Africa and 9 are in Asia, between 2008 and 2015;
- Major strengthening of routine surveillance (of TB notifications and TB deaths) as a basis for better measurement of TB incidence and TB mortality, and related improvements to the way in which existing surveillance data are used to estimate TB incidence and TB mortality. Particular emphasis is being given to a certification or accreditation process, in which the quality and coverage of notification data are systematically assessed. If the standards required to measure TB incidence directly are met (i.e. no adjustments for quality and coverage are required, and official notification data can be considered to provide a close proxy of TB incidence), then surveillance data can be certified or accredited. If the standards are not met, then the process will be used to provide recommendations for how to strengthen existing surveillance systems, as well as to indirectly estimate TB incidence. The aim is that all countries should eventually meet the standards required for certification/accreditation;
- Periodic review of methods that are used to translate data from surveillance systems and surveys into estimates of TB incidence, prevalence and mortality, and revision/updating of these methods as appropriate
The Task Force has established three subgroups to cover each of these three major areas of work (prevalence surveys; strengthening surveillance; methods used to produce epidemiological estimates). The Task Force is committed to supporting the work that has to be done in these three areas, both technically and financially.