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Scientists unveiled Thursday a revolutionary method of screening for TB in children, which would prevent hundreds of thousands of people each year from contracting the world's deadliest infectious disease.
A multinational team based at the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in The Hague has come up with a simple way to test stool samples of children under five.
The method, which can be implemented in remote communities, would replace the current practice, which is invasive and is normally available only in large hospitals.
About 240,000 children die of tuberculosis each year. The disease is curable and rarely fatal in infants if diagnosed and treated on time.
Nearly 90% of TB deaths in children are untreated.
The current test relies on the patient providing a sample of sputum – phlegm of the lower trachea.
The sample is then badyzed by a special machine, which then gives a result.
But as children under five can not spit, doctors must submit to an invasive and painful procedure that often requires spending the night at the hospital.
Indonesian and Ethiopian researchers, in collaboration with the foundation, have found a way to test the stools of children in the same way, which means they would not need to go to a large school. health.
"The potential of this method is enormous and means that we have a method in our hands that can diagnose tuberculosis at the lowest level of health care and screen hundreds of thousands of people," said Kitty van Weezenbeek, executive director of the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation. , who developed the method.
The results of the test were unveiled Thursday in The Hague at a global conference on lung health.
Petra de Haas, a laboratory consultant at KNCV, told AFP that the test could save many of the 650 children who die of TB every day.
"It's a real breakthrough because it can be done in small labs," she said.
"We already know that a quarter of a million children die (every year) .If they all pbad this test, we could save at least half of it."
Tuberculosis killed at least 1.7 million people in 2017, according to the World Health Organization, making airborne infection the world's deadliest infectious disease.
Despite the high number of victims, tuberculosis has received about one-tenth of the global funds devoted to HIV / AIDS research.
The new TB screening system for children, developed by an international team in The Hague, is much less invasive than the one currently in use
Chart on the global burden of tuberculosis, including 558,000 cases of multidrug resistance in 2017
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