Experts Harp on More Research on TB in Children

Worried by the appalling annual human toll of Tuberculosis (TB) and given the acknowledged difficulties in detecting TB in children, there is need for additional study and focus on the burden of disease in children, according to a study carried out by researchers at the University of Sheffield, Imperial College London, and TB Alliance.
TB is one of the top ten killers of children around the world. Although the disease is curable, many children are not diagnosed, and as a result, not given the treatment that could save their lives.
Researchers at the schools and TB Alliance have found evidence that a large gap exists between the number of TB cases in children that get notified to authorities and the true underlying incidence.
The gap, detailed in a study published in the journal Lancet Global Health, shows that TB in children is a major public health problem worldwide. The investigators estimated the number of children with TB in the 22 countries with the highest burden of TB in the world.
The study suggests that in these countries more than 650,000 children developed the disease in 2010, while 7.6 million became infected with the TB bacterium. Overall more than 53 million children were estimated to latently harbour the infection.
Health economics researcher Peter Dodd, from the University of Sheffield’s School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), said: “Quantifying the burden of TB in children is important because without good numbers, there can be no targets for improvement, no monitoring of trends and there is a lack of evidence to encourage industry to invest in developing medicines or diagnostics that are more appropriate for children than those available today.”
He added: “Historically, TB in children has not received the attention that it might have done. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is now encouraging countries to report the number of TB cases they find in children, but we still have only a poor idea what proportion of cases are recorded in youngsters.”
Diagnosing TB in children can be challenging and the disease can often be overlooked or mistaken for something else. This can lead to under-reporting, distorting the true scope of the problem and the real demand for paediatric TB treatment.