SYNOPSIS:Tuberculosis is increasingly recognized as an important cause of morbidity and mortality in young children living in resource-limited settings where tuberculosis is still endemic. Since the WHO took the unprecedented step of declaring that tuberculosis was a “global emergency” in 1993, the global tuberculosis control strategy has largely excluded children, despite being recognized as a particularly vulnerable group for developing tuberculosis. As the Global TB Programme seeks to expand its tuberculosis control strategy post-2015, the challenges of management and prevention of tuberculosis in children are being included and many National TB control Programmes are seeking guidance as to how to address the current wide policy-practice gaps. The Roadmap for childhood tuberculosis was a collaborative effort that included the WHO, Unicef, IUATLD, CDC, USAID and advocates that was launched in Washington D.C. on October 1st, 2013.

This talk will provide background of where tuberculosis fits into the context of the child survival agenda as well as the global tuberculosis control challenges. It will review the main challenges, both the need to do much better with what we have and the need for new and innovative tools particularly in diagnostics. Child health workers, including paediatric leaders, have a major role to play to support National Programmes as the traditionally vertical disease control programme seeks to engage the broader maternal and child health sector in high burden settings. Recent initiatives that are seeking to take advantage of the recent global attention to the challenges of childhood tuberculosis will be highlighted.

SPEAKER:Professor Steve Graham, Professor of International Child with the University of Melbourne, Group leader in International Child Health with MCRI, and consultant in child lung health with the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, is a paediatrician with over 20 years’ experience of working in resource-limited TB endemic settings in Africa and Asia-Pacific. Steve is current chair of the WHO Stop TB Partnership’s child TB sub-group and a member of WHO’s Strategic Technical Advisory Group for Tuberculosis. He led the international collaborative initiative that developed the Roadmap for childhood TB.