Management of Children with Tuberculosis

Abstract

Children carry a significant tuberculosis disease burden in settings with poor epidemic control and high levels of transmission. Even in high-resource settings, the diagnosis of tuberculosis in children can be challenging, but an accurate diagnosis can be achieved by adopting a systematic approach. This review outlines the general principles of tuberculosis prevention in children, including epidemic control, infection control, contact tracing and preventive therapy, and vaccination; diagnosing pediatric tuberculosis, including specimen collection and microbiological confirmation, highlighting key differences from adults; and tuberculosis treatment in children, including treatment of severe disease that mostly occurs in young children and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Keywords: Child; Diagnosis; Management; Multi-drug resistant; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Prevention; Treatment; Tuberculosis.