NEW YORK/GENEVA, October 15, 2024 — Children with tuberculosis (TB) continue to be left behind in the global effort to end the disease, said Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today. A new MSF report has found that many countries, including high-burden TB countries, lag behind in aligning their national TB policies with the latest guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO), contributing to the fact that only half of children worldwide who have TB are diagnosed and treated.
MSF is urging all countries to update their national guidelines so they are in line with WHO TB recommendations, allocate the necessary resources, and develop clear plans with timelines to implement the policies and increase access to TB prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the children with TB. International donors and technical support agencies must provide sufficient funding to help countries to do this.
“The WHO has updated policies to guide countries in providing the best possible care to children with TB, one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases,” said Stijn Deborggraeve, diagnostics advisor with MSF's Access Campaign. “Yet countries are lagging behind in adopting and implementing these solutions for testing, preventing, and treating TB in children. We urge countries, donors, and technical agencies to put an end to this deadly status quo and step up their efforts to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment of TB in children. We can no longer afford inaction. Every delay means that more children die unnecessarily.”
