Childhood tuberculosis: a hidden epidemic
Tuberculosis (TB) often goes undiagnosed in children from birth to 15 years old because they lack access to health services or the health workers who care for them are unprepared to recognise the signs and symptoms of TB in this age group. With better training and harmonisation of the different programmes that provide health services for children, serious illness and death from TB could be prevented in thousands of children every year, experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Stop TB Partnership urged.
Although we have made progress on TB, children have been left behind, and childhood TB remains a hidden epidemic in most countries. It is the high time to act and address it everywhere.
Most families who are vulnerable to TB live in poverty; know little about the disease and how to obtain care for it. When an adult is diagnosed with TB, no attempt is made to find out whether children in the household also have the disease. This is a crucial step, since most children catch TB from a parent or relative.
Any child living with a TB patient having an unexplained fever and failure to thrive may have the disease and should be evaluated by a health worker for TB. We should train all health workers who care for pregnant women, babies and children to check patients for TB risk, signs and symptoms and refer them for TB preventive therapy or TB treatment as needed.
A recent study in Bangladesh found that the number of children found to have TB more than trebled when workers at 18 community health centres received special training on childhood TB.
At least half a million babies and children become ill with TB each year and as many as 70,000 are estimated to die of the disease worldwide. Children under 3 years of age and those with severe malnutrition or compromised immune systems are at greatest risk for developing TB.
The only vaccine currently available for TB is the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), which offers limited protection against severe forms of TB, such as TB meningitis, in young children. Scientists are actively searching for a fully effective vaccine to protect children and adults against all forms of TB.
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