Ambulatory care and infectiousness in tuberculosis

One key aim of tuberculosis (TB) prevention and care is to render them more people-centred, which means further boosting and improving ambulatory care models across the countries of eastern Europe and central Asia. This note is intended to remind interested parties of the evidence that shows that ambulatory care is both feasible and safe. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that standard treatment for TB, whether drug-susceptible or drug-resistant, should be given as ambulatory care, with patients remaining within their community and continuing with normal life in so far as they feel well enough. Hospitalization need occur only if required for particular clinical reasons, as further explained in WHO’s “blueprint” on people-centred TB care and its policy on TB infection control. This recommendation provides the basis for development of all approaches to TB care that involve ambulatory care – that is to say, where treatment is provided through regular contact with the patient but without the person being required to remain in a hospital or sanatorium.