WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis. Module 4: treatment - drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment

    Año de publicación: 2020

    Since 2007, the guideline development process within the World Health Organization (WHO) has been overseen by the WHO Guidelines Review Committee (GRC), which follows internationally recognized standards such as the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach, to support to a structured and transparent methodology for policy-making. The policy recommendations presented here were developed following the standards and updated procedures described in the WHO handbook for guideline development. 1 Initially, a WHO Guideline Steering Group was established to determine specific areas requiring up-todate evidence, and to bring together experts to synthesize and independently review new evidence and develop recommendations (see Annex 2 and Annex 4). Also, an external review group was assembled to review the updated recommendations based on the input of the Guideline Development Group (GDG; see Annex 4). The GDG comprised researchers, epidemiologists, end-users (clinicians and national tuberculosis [TB] control programme officers), community representatives and experts in evidence synthesis. In compliance with the procedures and practices established by the GRC, declarations of interest (DOI) were managed according to the WHO Conflict of Interest Policy, including review of curricula vitae and critical evaluation of DOI. Additionally, contingent to the assessment of competing interests, the full list of members of the GDG and their biographies were published on the WHO website on 30 September 2019. This was followed by a public notice and comment period, during which WHO allowed members of the public to provide comments pertinent to any interests that might have gone unnoticed or unreported during earlier assessments. During the face-to-face GDG meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland on 12–14 November 2019, the members of the GDG reached decisions through a process of discussion and consensus. Where consensus could not be reached through discussion, the GDG voted on decisions – these decisions were noted in GRADEpro and were made based on the vote of the majority