The Union hosts Child TB in NTP workshop in Singapore

Many of the high-burden TB countries are in the Asia Pacific region, and so the burden of child TB is also likely to be high. However, child TB is largely under-represented in the regional NTP data and TB control activities. Consequently NTPs in the region are increasingly striving to increase and improve implementation of child TB in NTP.

 

The focus of the workshop was to identify the priority child TB activities that NTPs would like to address, to consider the role of training and training tools in implementation and to plan ways to evaluate implementation. Each country identified priority areas as part of the workshop, and they also presented their plans for implementation.

 

Representatives from Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia attended, including the national tuberculosis programme (NTP) managers of Bangladesh and Indonesia, NTP staff and child TB experts. Other participants were organisations engaged in child TB training or research in the region, such as Médecins sans Frontieres and Institut Pasteur, Cambodia.

 

In addition to organising workshops building capacity to manage child TB, The Union recently published a Deskguide for diagnosis and management of TB in children. This guide was designed initially for district-level health workers in TB/HIV endemic settings of sub-Saharan Africa, but it is also adaptable to other regions.

 

The workshop was organised and facilitated by Dr Stephen Graham of The Union and the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Dr Philip Hill of the University of Otago, New Zealand. The Union Asia Pacific Office provided support in arranging meeting venue, travel and accommodation for participants. Funding was provided by AusAID.

 

For information about upcoming child TB workshops – or to request one for your region or country, please contact sgraham@theunion.org