Mission

To reduce human suffering and mortality due to MDR-TB by assisting countries in scale-up of care and management of this grave form of TB in line with the Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015.

History

In 1994, the WHO/The Union global project on anti-TB drug resistance surveillance began with the objective of developing a standard methodology for surveillance to allow comparability of data between and within countries. The project promoted the implementation of nationwide surveys to estimate the magnitude of drug resistance, particularly MDR-TB, assist in programme planning and policy development and increase the laboratory capacity to conduct culture and drug susceptibility testing.

In 1998, WHO and partners launched "DOTS-Plus for MDR-TB" to manage MDR-TB with second-line drugs in resource-limited settings. In 1999, WHO established the Working Group on DOTS-Plus for MDR-TB. The Working Group was renamed in May 2006 to The Stop TB Working Group on MDR-TB.

The Green Light Committee (GLC) was formed in 2000 as a sub-group of the Working Group. It was established as a multi-institutional partnership to promote access to life-saving high-quality second-line drugs at reduced prices for the treatment of MDR-TB and under rigorous monitoring to prevent the creation of resistance to second-line drugs, the last line of defence against TB.

The Stop TB Partnership, established in 2000 is a global community of hundreds of organizations working together to eliminate TB as a global public health problem. Several Working Groups advance the mission of the Stop TB Partnership.

The WHO and the Stop TB Partnership support countries to manage multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) through the Green Light Committee (GLC) Initiative. The GLC Initiative is comprised of the GLC Committee, the WHO/GLC Secretariat, the Global Drug Facility (GDF), and partners who provide financial and technical assistance.

There have been steady increases in the number of patients with MDR-TB approved each year for treatment by the GLC Committee. However, the numbers remain small compared to the estimated annual incident cases. This threatens the control of TB world- wide, potentially undermining the major advances made in detecting and treating TB in the past 15 years.

New Global Framework

The new Global Framework is the result of an inclusive and iterative process undertaken by all key stakeholders supporting the expansion of MDR-TB services and care over the past 20 months. This included two retreats in October 2009 and February 2010, several meetings of three Task Forces that were established to look at defined issues, and a meeting of key stakeholders on the "Way forward to achieve universal access to diagnosis, treatment and care of MDR-TB" held in Geneva, Switzerland in February 2011. The new Global Framework was reviewed at the 19th Stop TB Partnership Coordinating Board meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 2010, at a special meeting of Board members in Berlin, Germany, on 11 November 2010, and endorsed at the 20th Coordinating Board in Washington DC, USA, on 1 April 2011.