ETTi core group members held two meetings in Nusa Dua, Bali in November 2024 to report on past and ongoing events and activities, review and update the group priorities, short- and long-term plans and update the group ToR. Dr. Beatrice Kirubi, Stop TB Partnership and Dr. Sevim Ahmedov, USAID attended the core group meeting and expressed active support of the group mission and supported the working groups' intention to be more efficient and productive.
Extensive activities are planned for 2025:
- Development of practical guidance (infosheet) on Natural Ventilation for Airborne IPC, Implementation of selected administrative measures for Airborne IPC and Ventilation ssessment methodology for Airborne IPC;
- Providing of webinars on airborne transmission and airborne IPC interventions across regions in different languages (English, Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Russian, etc)
- Development of educational multimedia materials of personal respiratory protection;
- Reviewing and development of proposal to update WHO’s operational handbook on tuberculosis infection prevention and control;
- Development and publication of TB and Airborne IPC for Pandemic Preparedness paper;
- Technical assistance to NTPs on implementation of effective and feasible TB IPC interventions.
Dr. Jun Cheng, Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra, Dr. Jerod Scholten and Dr. Manpreet Bhalla were elected as new ETTi core group members for the period 2025 - 2027.
Lisa Chen, principal investigator and medical director of the Curry International Tuberculosis Center (CITC) also attended the core group meeting and presented the recently published manual Tuberculosis Infection Control: A Practical Manual for Preventing TB, 2nd ed. Several ETTi core group members contributed to development of this comprehensive manual.