Guideline

This serial presents updated guidelines to US public health officials, healthcare providers, and laboratory workers for use of FDA-approved interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) to diagnose both active and latent TB infection in adults and children. These guidelines include use of the QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube Test (QFT-GIT) and the T-SPOT.TB Test (T-Spot), two new IGRAs that were not included in the previous guidelines published in 2005. The antigens, methods, and interpretation criteria for these assays differ from those for IGRAs approved previously.

This monograph is a menu intended as a practical resource for public health officials and their legal counsel in their efforts to eliminate TB. It contains TB-related legal issues, and suggests possible approaches for addressing those issues, and provisions to be considered within the policy and legal frameworks of the jurisdiction contemplating adoption of the suggested provision. Each section of the menu has a brief note describing the purpose of the provisions included in the section.

These new guidelines supersede previous WHO policy documents on the management of LTBI in people living with HIV, household contacts of people with active TB, other groups at risk of developing TB, and for LTBI testing. The consolidated guidelines are expected to provide the basis and rationale for the development of national guidelines for LTBI management, adapted to the national and local epidemiology of TB, the availability of resources, the health infrastructure and other national and local determinants.

Laboratory services, such as sputum specimen diagnosis, are vital to effective TB control. This resource may be used by laboratories to develop institutional policies that support proper collection and submission of sputum specimens for TB testing.