The Programmatic Management of Drug Resistant TB (PMDT) Guidelines of National TB Elimination Program (NTEP) establish the requirements of a Nodal DRTB Centre (NDRTBC) at the level of excellence. The CoE can be considered as a model NDRTB center that has achieved the level of excellence or more prescribed in the PMDT guidelines.

  • A CoE will be an institution with a designated Nodal DRTB center and has achieved and consistently maintains, advanced TB and DR-TB clinical expertise as prescribed in the Programmatic Management of DR-TB guidelines (PMDT) and provides the state-of-the-art clinical TB and DR-TB services to its patients. A CoE is also a recognized academic center, where new knowledge and expertise in TB and DR-TB care/management is constantly being generated and disseminated.

  • The CoE can be established in a Medical College or in Institute of National Importance (INI) such as National Institute of TB and Respiratory Diseases or a Tertiary Level Government Hospital. 

Once an institution has been designated as a CoE, it would be expected that it contributes to NTEP by supporting the linked spokes on the following:

  1. Support in capacity building & mentoring: CoEs are expected to

    1. provide experts for training and capacity building sessions for trainings organized by NTEP.

    2. provide clinical opinions for Difficult to Treat TB cases referred to CoEs from the linked DRTBCs, either physically or virtually 

    3. conduct short clinical courses for medical professionals in DR TB care  

    4. mentor the linked DRTBC to ensure that its patients are receiving the highest quality of care.

  2. Research & Evidence Generation: CoEs are expected to support in advancing quality of clinical care across the country through evidence generation.

  3. Demonstration of program components: CoEs will also support NTEP in demonstrating DRTB program components for which there are no good models exists in the country. Eg. Pulmonary rehabilitation, palliative care, Thoracic surgery care etc.