Even though it’s preventable and treatable, tuberculosis (TB) is a top ten killer of children worldwide.
Today, the ACTION Partnership releases its second brief on children and TB, issuing concrete recommendations for the international community and affected countries to combat this epidemic.
Since ACTION released its first Childhood TB brief last year, the global community has paid attention. Childhood TB served as the theme of this year’s World TB Day, and is the subject of new guidelines from the World Health Organization.
But we need to keep the momentum going. Children are still misdiagnosed, unaccounted for, and lack access to appropriate pediatric TB drugs.
“The global TB epidemic is a disgrace. If we want to end TB as a killer of children, we need to do more than just talk, we must transform attention to this deadly disease into action,” said Kolleen Bouchane, ACTION Director.
Civil society, health care workers, the private sector, as well as both donor and high burden countries must break out of their silos and work together. Read the brief – and its full list of recommendations –
at Action.org and join the #kidsTB #putkids1st conversation on Twitter.