White paper on challenges and opportunities for TB elimination with focus on COVID & Post-COVID era developed through scientific roundtable resolutions at NATCON 2020

A group of TB experts with vast clinical and epidemiological experience were drawn from a pool of doctors, epidemiologists and scientists participating in NATCON 2020 Conference in a closed-door session to discuss, highlight, and prioritize key resolutions that are most pertinent at present to eliminate TB from India and other developing countries in the Covid and post-COVID era. These Scientific experts were non-industry persons who met on 17th December, 2020 and used the prevailing scientific literature along with 2019 Joint Monitoring Mission document as a starting point of the discussion on this specific topic to build an agreement upon the resolutions. After the meeting on the virtual platform, all the attending doctors gave a set of recommendations on rebuilding TB Elimination programme in the Covid and Post-Covid era. Focused scientific roundtable discussion on rebuilding TB Elimination Post-Covid. Develop actionable recommendations for the scientific community and the government leadership to consider in moving forward. To prioritize the recommendations in the categories of Build-Prevent-Detect-Treat.
Highlights • A group of TB experts met during the annual NATCON on 17th December. • The attending doctors gave a set of recommendations on rebuilding TB Elimination programme in the Covid and Post-Covid era. • Resources and notification system used in COVID can be used for active education and surveillance of current cases of TB on treatment & their contacts. • The Governments and private foundations must fast tract and prioritize the development of a TB vaccine by 2022 as an end game for TB disease. • An unequivocal policy of diagnosis, treatment and screening of LTBI in “high risk” groups to be developed for the country. • Clinical trials of re-vaccination of Mantoux negative adult population.