The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease has warned that ignoring the fight against tuberculosis because of the Lethal pandemic would put the lives of +400,000 children at risk. There are concerns about potential impact of COVID-19 on the large number of children and adolescents living with TB infection or disease across the region.
The Union noted that though TB is both curable and preventable, it remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children and adolescents and had only recently been afforded the attention that was long overdue.
The Union’s Director of TB Department, Dr. Grania Brigden in the statement warned, “If resources are diverted away from child and adolescent TB programmes in order to fight COVID-19, the consequences for the estimated 400,000 children and adolescents in the African region needing TB and multidrug-resistant TB care each year could be devastating.
“There is clear overlap in the public health response required to confront the coronavirus pandemic with what is already required for TB – case detection, contact screening and management, and infection control.
“This provides an important opportunity to integrate rather than disperse health services.
“The needs of children and adolescents should be considered when developing alternative methods for screening, referral and medication delivery as countries determine how to shift routine service delivery to minimise contacts in health facilities”
Stressing the need to pay attention to the fight against TB amid the COVID-19 pandemic, The Union revealed that an estimated one million children fall ill with TB every year, and one-quarter of all people with TB disease in the world live in Africa.
The organisation also noted that in 2018, of all the people living with HIV in the world who developed TB, 72 percent of them were in Africa, adding that Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 82 percent of all HIV-associated TB deaths that same year.
Brigden further said ,”There are also concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on recent efforts to scale up TB preventive therapy, particularly in young child contacts (less than five years) or children and adolescents living with HIV.
“Efforts to secure supply chains of needed medical equipment, laboratory commodities and medications for this vulnerable population will be critical to averting negative impacts.
” These concerns have also been matched by reports of interruptions in routine vaccination programmes for children, including the diversion of BCG vaccine to other populations.”
“BCG and other routine vaccinations for infants and children must continue during any COVID-19 response.
“We have to ensure that these children do not become collateral damage of the COVID-19 response.”
Also speaking, The Union’s lead for the Child and Adolescent TB Centre of Excellence, based in Kampala, Uganda, John Paul Dongo, said, “In sub-Saharan Africa, we have been fighting a dual epidemic of TB and HIV for decades – in both adults and children.
“If countries are forced to scale back on TB and HIV prevention and care, the continent could be facing an unprecedented resurgence in both diseases, which could greatly compound the devastation likely to be caused by the coronavirus.”
To sustain the fight against TB, The Union therefore, called on donors and partners to continue to support TB care and prevention responses – including a focused effort on child and adolescent TB.
The Union also called on national TB programmes and ministries of health to keep TB and comorbidities on the agenda during the COVID-19 response.
SOURCE: PUNCH
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