There now exists child-friendly tuberculosis (TB) medicines in the correct doses. This announcement was made on December 2, 2015 by the TB Alliance and its partners, ahead of the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, South Africa.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), TB now ranks as the world’s leading infectious disease killer along HIV. At least one million children get TB every year and 140,000 die from the disease. However, the disease is curable through a multiple-drug treatment plan taken for a minimum of six months.
Up until this announcement, child-friendly TB medicines were not available. Parents and care providers needed to crush or chop available drugs, and manually piece together the treatment regimen, to approximate the correct dose for a child.
‘Splitting TB pills, which gives the medication a bitter taste and usually results in imprecise dosing, makes the treatment journey even more difficult for children and their families. Such challenges can also make treatment less effective, leading to poor health outcomes and the development of more difficult to treat drug-resistant TB in children,’ reported WHO on their website after the announcement.
Over the past three years, TB Alliance has worked with manufacturers to develop properly-formulated TB medicines that are easier to administer in children. The formulations are in the process of being prequalified by WHO but are now available under the WHO’s Expert Review Panel mechanism.
“The availability of correctly dosed medications will improve treatment for children everywhere,” said Dr Mel Spigelman, President and CEO of TB Alliance.
TB Alliance is working with WHO, UNICEF, Management Sciences for Health and other organisations to encourage uptake in countries with high TB burdens and to reach children affected by TB at all levels or sectors of healthcare. Initial roll-out of the new medicines is expected in early 2016.
Good news for Kenyan children
“Childhood TB is a problem that can be solved when we choose to act,” said Dr Enos Masini, Head of the National Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Lung Disease Program (NTLD-Program), at the conference in Cape Town. “We need to make sure all children with TB are diagnosed and treated with the best medicines possible. I’m proud to say Kenya plans to adopt these new products for our children immediately, which will greatly improve our response to treating drug-sensitive TB.”
Through our Tuberculosis Accelerated Response and Care (TB ARC) activity, CHS seeks to expand access to quality-assured TB services in all Counties and for all forms of TB, through the identification and implementation of evidence-based interventions that support and/or complement the activities of the NTLD-Program and increase the proportion of TB cases identified and treated over a period of five years.
