Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is now the leading cause of death from infectious diseases for children of all ages globally
Children with vulnerable immune systems, such as the very young, HIV-infected or severely malnourished, are most at risk for falling ill or dying from tuberculosis. Children with tuberculosis are often poor and living in vulnerable communities that lack access to health care. Adolescents are at particular risk of developing adult type disease, i.e., often sputum smear-positive and highly infectious.
Current status and trends
Tuberculosis is now the leading cause of death from infectious diseases globally, with an estimated 10.0 million new cases in 2017, 1 million of which were in children under age 15. Only 7.1 per cent of the estimated child tuberculosis cases were notified to tuberculosis programmes, pointing to massive under- diagnosis. In 2017, some 194,000 children died of the disease. Children represent about 10 per cent of all tuberculosis cases.(1) More than 67 million healthy children have latent tuberculosis infection and are at risk of developing the disease in the future,(3) and less than 300,000 eligible children under age 5 initiated preventive therapy in 2017.(1) Researchers estimate that more than 25,000 children develop multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis every year (3).
Due to their large population size, South Asia and East Asia and the Pacific accounted for the majority of new child tuberculosis cases in 2017 (62 per cent), while African regions accounted for about 25 per cent (1).
Tuberculosis incidence among children varies widely and the largest number of cases are concentrated in Asia
Source: World Health Organization, Global Tuberculosis Report 2016, WHO, Geneva, 2016
Data availability
Data to measure tuberculosis incidence come from countries’ routine reporting on case notification and treatment outcomes, supplemented by national tuberculosis prevalence surveys (22 of which have been conducted between 2009 and 2016).
References
(1) World Health Organization, ‘Global Tuberculosis Report 2018’, WHO, Geneva, 2018
(2) Dodd, Peter J., Charalambos Sismanidis, and James A. Seddon, ‘Global Burden of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Children: A mathematical modelling study’, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, October 2016
(3) World Health Organization, ‘Global Tuberculosis Report 2015’, WHO, Geneva, 2015
Other:
UNICEF 2017. Is Every Child Counted? Status of data for children in the SDGs. New York. 2017
