The purpose of this report is to update recommendations based on new evidence on the treatment of DS-TB as well as patient care and support and to assemble all the existing and updated WHO recommendations for ease of access for end-users. Several updates in the report refer to digital medication monitors as viable interventions:
Neither DOT nor SAT alone are sufficient to ensure positive treatment outcome. Adherence interventions significantly improve treatment outcomes were compared to DOT or SAT alone.
“As treatment supervision alone is not likely to be sufficient to ensure good treatment outcomes, additional treatment adherence interventions need to be provided.”
“The evidence also showed that when patients receiving treatment adherence interventions (e.g. different combinations of patient education, staff education, material support, psychological support, tracer and use of medication monitor) in conjunction with DOT or SAT, the treatment outcomes were significantly improved compared to DOT or SAT alone.”
Digital medication monitors are strongly correlated with actual medication ingestion and thus are suitable, more patient-centric alternatives to DOT. Based on existing support, the evriMED device (and other similar digital medication monitors) have been approved for use with DS-TB patients by the WHO.
Full citation: Guidelines for the treatment of drug-susceptible tuberculosis and patient care, 2017 update. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.