World Health Organization (WHO)
2015
ISBN 978 92 4 150993 0

The aim of this document is to guide actions that are needed at the national level to adapt, launch and implement the World Health Organization’s End TB Strategy. The Strategy, approved by the 67th World Health Assembly in 2014, is designed to achieve a health-related target under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 that calls for ending the TB epidemic. Pursuing this ambitious but achievable goal will require new ways of working, building on the national and global efforts of the past two decades and seizing the opportunity to draw in many new stakeholders to join the endeavour.

This document was developed by the WHO’s Global TB Programme. It has benefited from the collective inputs of WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Tuberculosis and in-depth consultations with many stakeholders during the two-year development of the Strategy and during the year after its approval. It also builds on the early experiences of countries preparing to introduce the Strategy.

This document, designed for use mainly by national TB programmes (NTPs) and equivalents within Ministries of health, is intended for all stakeholders engaged in TB care and prevention. The NTPs must engage with a wide range of stakeholders to implement the Strategy. Using this document as a starting point, country officials may need to prepare detailed national operational guidance on the implementation of the Strategy to meet the needs of diverse stakeholders.

As countries adapt and implement the End TB Strategy and share their experiences, WHO will provide additional guidance and tools and revise The Essentials as appropriate. This is therefore a ‘living’ document and will be enriched by supplementing it further with country examples and case studies available online.

[ Download the document from the WHO website ]