Technical Consultation on latent TB infection management: research in support of scale-up

Overview

The Global TB Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO/GTB), in partnership with the WHO Collaborating Centre in TB Research at McGill University hosted a meeting in Montréal, Canada, on September 16 2019, to discuss and update the research priorities in LTBI management and implementation. Participants invited included leading researchers in LTBI diagnostics and treatment, representatives of national TB programmes, representatives of governmental and non-governmental initiatives for large-scale implementation of LTBI, other technical agencies, WHO staff and funding agencies.

The specific objectives of the meeting were to review the current landscape of research in LTBI, and discuss the most recent advances in diagnosis, treatment, and implementation over the past 5 years; to update and describe the major knowledge gaps and research needs in diagnosis, treatment and implementation of LTBI management in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); and to identify major barriers in research and implementation of LTBI management in LMIC and formulate an action plan for the most urgent items for governments and donors to invest in. This meeting resulted in an action agenda based on the current barriers to LTBI implementation scale up and the corresponding priority research needs.