Costing guidelines for tuberculosis interventions

Overview

Estimating the cost of TB interventions is essential for planning, prioritizing and managing the funding of TB services. The best way to estimate the unit costs of TB interventions in different countries is costing studies based on recommended methods, including primary data collection at national and local levels.

These costing guidelines explain how to cost TB interventions from the perspective of the providers of health services. The provider perspective takes the point of view of the provision of services; the costs are those incurred by a hospital, clinic or TB facility providing the services. Tools for data collection referred to as the Value TB Costing Tool Suite are included.

The guidelines build on and update those previously published by WHO. They are consistent with the Global Health Costing Consortium’s Reference Case for Estimating the Costs of Global Health Services and Interventions which provides a set of standardized principles and methods for collecting and evaluating cost data from a provider perspective (as opposed to that of a patient or household).

These guidelines also complement  WHO guidance on estimating costs borne by TB-affected households.