New WHO Guidelines for Preventing TB Among HIV-Infected People

For the first time in more than a decade, the WHO has issued new guidelines for preventing tuberculosis (TB) in HIV-infected individuals in resource-constrained settings. To date, the WHO has focused its HIV/TB efforts in such settings on intensified TB case-finding (ICF), isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT), and infection control. These new guidelines update the recommendations for ICF and IPT specifically. Each recommendation is graded as strong or conditional, and the supporting evidence is categorized as high, moderate, low, or very low.

Major recommendations are as follows:

• All HIV-infected adults and adolescents should be screened for TB with a simple algorithm that relies on four clinical symptoms — cough, fever, weight loss, and night …