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Home / The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Volume 19, Supplement 1

Open Access Counting children with tuberculosis: why numbers matter

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In the last 5 years, childhood tuberculosis (TB) has received increasing attention from international organisations, national TB programmes and academics. For the first time, a number of different groups are developing techniques to estimate the burden of childhood TB. We review the challenges in diagnosing TB in children and the reasons why cases in children can go unreported. We discuss the importance of an accurate understanding of burden for identifying problems in programme delivery, targeting interventions, monitoring trends, setting targets, allocating resources appropriately and providing strong advocacy. We briefly review the estimates produced by new analytical methods, and outline the reasons for recent improvements in our understanding and potential future directions. We conclude that while innovation, collaboration and better data have improved our understanding of the childhood TB burden, it remains substantially incomplete.

Keywords: TB; burden; estimation; paediatric

Document Type: Research Article

Affiliations: 1: Department of Paediatrics, Imperial College London, London, UK 2: Department of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 3: Institute for International Programs, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland 4: Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut 5: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 6: Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 7: Centre for International Child Health, University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics and Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 8: Global TB Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland 9: School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Publication date: 01 December 2015

More about this publication?

  • The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IJTLD) is for clinical research and epidemiological studies on lung health, including articles on TB, TB-HIV and respiratory diseases such as COVID-19, asthma, COPD, child lung health and the hazards of tobacco and air pollution. Individuals and institutes can subscribe to the IJTLD online or in print – simply email us at [email protected] for details.

    The IJTLD is dedicated to understanding lung disease and to the dissemination of knowledge leading to better lung health. To allow us to share scientific research as rapidly as possible, the IJTLD is fast-tracking the publication of certain articles as preprints prior to their publication. Read fast-track articles.

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