"The purpose of the International Standards for Tuberculosis Care (ISTC) is to describe a widely accepted level of care that all practitioners, public and private, should seek to achieve in managing patients who have, are suspected of having, or are at increased risk of developing tuberculosis."

The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the TB epidemic, and of progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease at global, regional and country levels.

High burden country programs increasingly acknowledge the patient and health system challenges of DOT and have been seeking more patient-centric care.
As part of patient-centered care and depending on needs, all patients should receive educational, emotional and economic support to enable them to complete the diagnostic process and full course of required treatment.

"New technologies for monitoring medication adherence—including cellphone-based strategies and electronic pillboxes—may soon become available to GPs in parts of India and provide alternative strategies for monitoring pill-taking by patients in real time."

"India's tuberculosis-control program has been successful in improving access to care, the quality of diagnosis, and the likelihood of successful treatment. We estimate that the improved program has prevented 200,000 deaths, with indirect savings of more than $400 million — more than eight times the cost of implementation."

"Finding all people with TB disease and successfully treating them is an important priority for the country. Treatment adherence is a key factor for treatment success and inadequate adherence is associated with various adverse outcomes like the development of Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB), relapse, continued transmission of the disease and even death."

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.