The Union’s MDR-TB activities:

Training for people at every level of the health care system is central to The Union's approach. International and national courses in English, French or Spanish train clinicians to manage MDR-TB cases and cover questions ranging from logistics and procurement to ethics and human rights.

Technical assistance: At the request of an NTP, The Union helps review plans, procedures, policies and systems and makes suggestions for improvement of case detection, diagnosis and patient monitoring. The Union works closely with NTPs to support them in the implementation of best practices for ordering, storing and distributing medicines, as well as to assure the quality of the medicines selected for national procurement and to monitor their quality. Moreover, The Union gives in situ an online technical assistance in the clinical management of complicated TB cases, included patients with MDR-TB and XDR-TB. In recognition of the pivotal role of laboratories in diagnosing and monitoring drug-resistant strains of the disease, The Union has also helped develop an international network of TB reference laboratories.

Operation research and clinical trials: The Union is currently running a clinical trial to assess a nine-month standardized treatment regimen for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in South Africa, Ethiopia and Vietnam. It is also coordinating an operational research study on a 9-month regimen for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in 9 francophone African countries.

Guides/publications: In 2013, The Union published a new guide entitled ‘Guidelines for the Clinical and Operational Management of Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis’. Together with MSF, The Union has released a publication entitled ‘DR-TB drugs under the microscope: the sources and prices of medicines’.

For more information and resources from The Union, please visit: http://www.theunion.org/.

 
 

© World Health Organization 2013

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this CD-ROM may be reproduced, changed, adapted, translated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright holder, except to make a security backup. Requests for permissions, with a statement of the purpose and extent, should be addressed to WHO Press, World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland (fax: +41 22 791 4806; e-mail: permissions@who.int)

The designations employed and the presentation of the material on this CD-ROM do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the World Health Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers and boundaries. Dotted lines on maps represent approximate border lines for which there may not yet be full agreement.

The mention of specific companies or of certain manufacturers' products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the World Health Organization in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned

The World Health Organization does not warrant that the information contained on the CD-ROM is complete and correct. The Organization shall not be liable for any damages incurred as a result of use of the data or programs.

The procedures and programs used for access to or display of the data contained on the CD-ROM may not be reproduced, changed, adapted, translated, stored in a retrieval system (except for backup copies) or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

 

 

Created by WHO-Graphics