30 March 2021, Geneva | The World Health Organization Global Tuberculosis Programme has initiated a process for the establishment of Global individual patient data platform for drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment (DR-TB IPD). The DR-TB IPD is a shared platform and collaborative initiative to generate reliable evidence on drug-resistant TB treatment to inform future TB treatment guidelines and be available for researchers to analyse. The purpose of the DR-TB IPD is to facilitate pooling of individual patient data issued from researchers, local or national databases in the context of drug-resistant TB treatment and facilitate policy update, development and public health research. It will be supported by the WHO Global TB Programme and maintained by the selected Data Curator. Data Curator is the entity in charge of maintenance, curation and hosting of the DR-TB IPD.

When compared with aggregated data, individual patient data (IPD) allows a more refined testing of hypotheses on the determinants of an outcome. This is exemplified by updates to the WHO treatment policy for drug-resistant TB which has benefited from data from observational studies run in diverse settings worldwide, including data from national TB programmes, as well as data from randomised controlled trials.

The WHO Global TB Programme is seeking support from academic institutions or other entities with relevant expertise and experience to host, maintain and append new data into complex, health outcomes related databases therefore taking a role of the Data Curator. The candidate entity should be able to work independently as well as interact regularly and collaboratively with the WHO team, researchers and country programmes.

The expression of interest letter specifying details on the relevant capacity of the host institution complemented with a brief proposal (max 5 pages), resume of the persons to be involved and an annual budget estimate can be submitted to the WHO Global TB Programme. Please review the concept note for details of the work and requirements.

Please send your submission to the WHO Global TB Programme at GTBPCI@who.int by 15 April 2021. The proposals received will go through a detailed review process and the selected Data Curator will be notified on completion of the review process. The candidate entity and the WHO Global TB Programme will sign a Project Collaboration Agreement for the period of 5 years that will allow for the collaborative work and support of the activities.