This document was prepared by Christian Lienhardt, Karin Weyer, Dennis Falzon, Fraser Wares, Ernesto Jaramillo, Diana Weil and Mario Raviglione (World Health Organization (WHO), Stop TB Department) on the basis of consensus at an international Expert Group meeting convened by WHO in Geneva, Switzerland on 29–30 January 2013.
WHO gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the Chair of the Expert Group (Holger Schünemann), and its members (Elie Akl, Adekunle V. Babawele, Mauricio Baretto, Martien W. Borgdorff, Erlina Borhan, Richard E. Chaisson, Lucy Chesire, Erica Lessem, Norbert Ndjeka, Viet Nhung Nguyen, Joshua Obasanya, Michael L. Rich, Simon Schaaf, Francis Varaine, Andrew Vernon, Susanne van Den Hof and Piret Viiklepp) who jointly developed the recommendations, and the contributions from the technical resource consultants (Bernard Fourie, Ekaterina Kurbatova, Charles Peloquin and Anna Vassall).
WHO also acknowledges the contributions of the members of the External Review Panel (Jose A. Caminero, Gavin Churchyard, Anna Marie Celina Garfin, Giovanni Battista Migliori, Ashok Kumar, Helen McIlleron, Richard Menzies, Rohit Sarin, Alena Skrahina, Maarten van Cleeff). In addition, WHO acknowledges the specialized input from HIV experts Kelly Dooley, Diane Havlir and Gary Maartens, on concomitant use of bedaquiline and antiretroviral drugs.
This document was finalized following consideration of all comments and suggestions from the participants of the Expert Group and the External Review Panel. Technical editing was completed by Tim France, Inis Communication.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is acknowledged for its support to the development of these guidelines through a USAID-WHO Consolidated Grant (project number: US 2012 0392). The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is acknowledged for its contributive work on the use of sputum culture conversion as a surrogate marker of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment outcome (carried out by Ekaterina Kurbatova and colleagues).
Declarations of interest
All Expert Group (EG) members, technical resource consultants and members of the External Review Panel completed Declaration of Interest (DOI) forms. These were reviewed by the WHO Legal Department prior to the EG meeting and preparation of the current Interim Policy Guidance.
Two EG members (Erica Lessem and Andrew Vernon) declared receiving support from pharmaceutical companies for work not related to the present guidance. These declarations were deemed to be insignificant. The other members of the EG, as well as the technical resource consultants and the members of the External Review Panel, declared no interest.
