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Developing the Evidence Base for Diagnostic Tools

Following the establishment of the Stop TB Partnership with its focused working groups, the adoption of the Stop TB Strategy and improved support for research in TB, substantial progress has been made in evaluating and improving existing tools and strategies and developing new methods for the diagnosis of TB. These developments have produced a number of individual advances and some progress in comprehensive approaches to diagnosis. At the same time, the extent to which this new knowledge provides sufficient evidence for improving policy and practice is not entirely clear. Under TREAT TB Technical Project Activity 1, The Union is undertaking several steps that will contribute to the development of consensus, evaluation, and creation of new knowledge needed to show the way forward. This component of the Year 1 work plan is referred to as the Diagnostic Tools Initiative (DTI).

Project Areas include:

  • Establishing a process to engage key stakeholders in consensus building;
  • Developing a comprehensive catalogue of potential tools and strategies;
  • Undertaking an evaluation of individual components (through assessment of unpublished field work and systematic reviews of published research) to determine if sufficient evidence is available to form the basis of action; and
  • Commissioning research to address the gaps in evidence identified by the evaluation.

To be successful, the Diagnostic Tools Initiative will need to feature a clear and transparent process to assess current knowledge and activities in the field (both published and unpublished), achieve consensus on which aspects require further field evaluations, and rapidly move to the stage of research implementation (as needed) to develop the evidence base which will inform country-level guidance. These efforts are focused on the area of new tools and alternative approaches for existing tools, and they will be linked with other activities focused on modeling and country-level guidance, as key components of this project.