WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis: module 4: treatment: drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment (2020)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has produced this WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis to provide practical advice to complement the latest WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis, drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment.

This document provides information on the choice and design of regimens for the treatment of drugresistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), including multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB (MDR/RR-TB), and confirmed rifampicin-susceptible, isoniazid-resistant tuberculosis TB (Hr-TB).

The strategies described in this module are mainly based on the latest WHO recommendations, which were formulated by guideline development groups (GDGs) using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. However, in many cases, the recommendations lacked the level of clinical and programmatic detail needed for implementation.

This module complements the guidelines with practical advice based on best practices and knowledge from fields such as pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, microbiology, pharmacovigilance, and clinical and programmatic management.