The clinical practice guideline establishes definitions and strategies for improving contact tracing, addressing gaps revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic and other outbreaks.


RT’s Three Key Takeaways:

  1. Global Contact Tracing Framework Established: The WHO’s new disease-agnostic guideline provides a global framework for contact tracing, addressing gaps in strategies and resources highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic and other outbreaks.
  2. Focus on Contextual and Multisectoral Needs: The guideline emphasizes the importance of tailoring contact tracing to local cultural, workforce, and contextual conditions while recognizing the multisectoral nature of effective outbreak containment.
  3. Definitions and Strategic Recommendations: The guideline introduces standardized definitions for terms like “contact” and “contact tracing” and offers evidence-based strategies to enhance global readiness and minimize the impact of infectious diseases.

In today’s interconnected world, infectious diseases can spread rapidly, threatening lives and livelihoods. Contact tracing has long been considered a fundamental strategy to contain and control disease outbreaks, used effectively for diseases such as tuberculosis and Ebola virus disease. 

While it is a complex intervention that must be sensitive to subtleties and nuances, contact tracing may minimize the outbreak size and reduce the loss of human life and economic impact. 

In addition to responding to the characteristics of different diseases, contact tracing must be designed and developed to meet contextual, local, and cultural needs, conditions, and sensitivities, as well as the capacities and limitations of the local workforce.

The absence of a comprehensive global contact tracing strategy, guidelines, and standard operating procedures was stressed during a consultation organized by the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network in June 2020. Although many resources exist for vertical program disease management, outbreak containment, and response, none address the overall rationale of contact tracing and optimal strategies, nor give proper attention to the truly multisectoral nature of this public health intervention.

WHO’s New Contact Tracing Guideline

To address this need, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed an evidence-based disease-agnostic contact tracing guideline

This practical guideline establishes definitions for “contact,” “contact person,” “contact tracing,” and other associated concepts. It allows for the improvement of contact tracing strategies and provides recommendations attempting to answer some, though not all, questions that arose during the 2019 coronavirus pandemic and other outbreaks. The use of this guideline begins once people have been diagnosed and the potential for transmission exists. It is not, however, intended to assist with case investigation, according to WHO. 

The guideline aims to empower health workers, governments, and public health officials with the tools to implement effective contact tracing strategies.

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