In the latest World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines on drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) treatment, modifications to the recommended all-oral treatments for multidrug- and rifampicin-resistant (MDR/RR) TB and novel regimens for patients with extensively drug-resistant TB are encouraged under operational research conditions.
TDR in close collaboration with the Global TB Programme at WHO and technical partners has developed ShORRT (Short, all-Oral Regimens For Rifampicin-resistant Tuberculosis), an operational research package to assess the effectiveness, safety, feasibility, acceptability, cost and impact (including on health-related quality of life) of the use of such drug regimens for adults and children with MDR/RR-TB.
By providing a standardized methodology, ShORRT aims to facilitate the conduct of operational research on all-oral shorter MDR/RR-TB treatment regimens by countries, and to generate data that are harmonized across different implementation settings.
Evidence from this research can play a key role in informing programmatic implementation at the country level, and also provide important data to the global TB community to strengthen the evidence base and inform treatment guidelines.
The ShORRT research package is aligned with the 2020 WHO Consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis: Module 4 – Drug-resistant TB treatment, the Operational Handbook on tuberculosis: Module 4 – Drug-resistant TB treatment, and the 2014 Companion Handbook to the WHO guidelines for the programmatic management of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Since its official launch in Hyderabad, India, in November 2019, the ShORRT initiative is now involving and supporting 25 countries worldwide, working alongside WHO Regional and country offices, academia, technical partners such as KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, the Union and Damien Foundation, and funding agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Caption: Countries involved in the ShORRT initiative (blue) and countries involved in the initiative led by the WHO Regional Office for Europe on the introduction of modified all-oral shorter treatment regimens for MDR/RR-TB within the European TB Research Initiative (ERI-TB) (red). Data collection methods are consistent across the ShORRT and EURO initiative; more information on the EURO initiative is available here (as of June 2021).
TDR/GTB support to country study teams
The team at TDR and GTB, and technical partners are available to provide in-country and remote support to study investigators during the adaptation of the protocol and implementation of the study.
For any query, investigators can email ShORRT@who.int
Cambodia ShORRT video interview
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