London: Drug-resistant tuberculosis is a form of tuberculosis that has largely been associated with children who are affected with the disease and also has important implications for the TB control programme.
These children all across the globe are difficult to manage because of the increased adverse effects of the second-line anti-TB drugs and the extended duration of treatment.
According to a new study done by researchers from the University of Sheffield, Imperial College London, and the World Health Organisation, more then 67 million children were infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis with 850,000 developing active disease.
The study highlighted the global burden of the disease among children all across the globe.
Among these children, around two million were estimated to be infected with multidrug-resistant (MDR)-tuberculosis strains, leading to 25,000 cases of MDR-TB disease which requires very expensive and toxic treatment.
Tuberculosis infecting children is highly being recognized as a serious public health problem.
As per study, improved estimates of the rates of drug resistance in children are important as paediatric tuberculosis is very difficult to diagnose and also it is not easy to test it for drug sensitivity.
The highest numbers of children with TB were reported in Africa and Southeast Asia, but the World Health Organisation Eastern Mediterranean region, European region, and Western Pacific region are also among those who contribute substantially to the burden of drug-resistant TB because of their much higher proportions of resistance.
Peter Dodd, an infectious disease epidemiologist from the University's School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), said, "Our report shows far more drug-resistant TB occurs in children than is diagnosed, and there is a large pool of drug-resistant infection.
If they are not identified as having drug-resistant TB, children are unlikely to receive appropriate and effective treatment."
"After infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, young children are at particularly high risk of progressing to tuberculosis disease, he added."
Not only Mycobacterium tuberculosis, children are also more likely to be be infected by more severe forms of disease such as TB meningitis and disseminated TB, the study suggested.
The report, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, concludes that the identified cases of drug-resistant TB in children are to be taken into consideration as there is urgent need for diagnosis, drug-susceptibility testing, and appropriate treatment.
Such results could act as suggestions for treatment and other measures to cure this disease in atleast some parts of this globe.
