Difficulty in detection of childhood tuberculosis (TB) still remains a major challenge for the government's success in TB control programme, experts and development activists said.
They identified several reasons for government failure in detecting TB in children under 15. Of the reasons, detection is the most challenging job as children cannot produce cough that is required for diagnosis, they added.
Besides, there are other technical and social reasons such as lack of diagnosis and treatment facilities, malnutrition, lack of awareness and orientation of the physicians.
They stressed the need for increasing public awareness and providing the paediatricians with orientation for greater success in TB control.
Talking to the FE, line director of National TB Control Programme (NTCP) Dr Ahmed Hussain Khan said due to lack of orientation, physicians sometimes misdiagnose or often get confused with child patients when they are attacked overlapping the symptoms with pneumonia or acute respiratory infections.
Even physicians also make misinterpretation of X-ray reports done for detecting specific TB, he said, adding that lack of awareness about TB makes children extremely vulnerable to the disease as they can get infected by adult TB patients inside or outside the family.
During a visit to Roopganj upazila in Narayanganj, it was found that there were only four children among a total of 610 TB patients under treatment. In Narayanganj district, the number of TB patients was 4,860 in 2014 and child patients were 182, up from 169 in 2013.
Talking to the FE, the mother of child TB patient Munia Akter (2 and half years) at Shawgat village in Roopganj, said her child had been suffering from fever once a month that lasted for seven to 15 days since she was seven months old.
Doctors diagnosed Munia's cough two times and did X-ray two times to detect TB. Finally, her TB was confirmed in the last X-ray in June, 2014 and she was cured after getting treatment for seven months.
According to NTCP data, there were 0.18 million TB patients detected under the programme. The rate of detection is 119 per 0.1 million and the number of child TB patients is only 5,044 which is 3.0 per cent of total TB patients. The high ups in the government claim the percentage to be 6.0. Experts think the number of child TB patients is much higher in the country.
Bangladesh is ranked 6th among 22 high TB burden countries in the world. But there are many undetected TB patients. There is confusion about the number of TB and child TB patients.
According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, TB disease in children under 15 years (also called paediatric tuberculosis) is a public health problem of special significance because it is a marker for recent transmission of TB.
Also infants and young children are more likely than older children and adults to develop life-threatening forms of TB diseases (e.g. disseminated TB, TB meningitis). Among children, the greatest numbers of TB cases are seen in children less than five years, and in adolescents older than 10 years of age.
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Late detection hits child TB control programme
Kamrun Nahar | Published: March 07, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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