WHO's Global Tuberculosis Programme is pleased to announce the update and release of ScreenTB (screentb.org) - a web-based tool designed to assist countries in prioritizing risk groups for screening, as well as in developing screening and prevention approaches tailored to country contexts.
Screening is a key action for countries to reach the ambitious targets committed by world leaders at the 2023 UN High Level Meeting on the fight against TB. The political declaration targets commit countries to detect and treat 45 million people with TB and to initiate 45 million people on TB preventive treatment by 2027. This will require the rapid scaling up of activities such as screening and active case finding.
"Innovative technologies, such as portable digital x-ray modalities, and Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) software, have greatly expanded the reach and potential of screening implementation in recent years," said Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO's Global TB Programme. "We are confident that ScreenTB will make it easier for countries to plan and carry out systematic screening to help achieve the ambitious targets needed to end TB worldwide".
ScreenTB utilizes data from the WHO's latest Global TB Report and other international databases, as well as data from the published literature, to provide the latest country-specific estimates of key information on TB burden and risk factors, accuracy of screening and diagnostic tools, and country-specific estimates of costs. The tool also lets users customize risk groups and screening tools as desired.
ScreenTB then generates estimates of a number of important outcomes for the user, specific to the country and risk groups being screened and the tools and algorithms selected, including yield of screening, eligibility for TB preventive treatment, and costs. The tool also generates a number of figures to allow for visual comprehension and comparison of the outcomes.
