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Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS Dr Enos Masini In December 2015, at the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, the TB Alliance (Global Alliance for TB Drug Development) and its partners had announced the availability of first-ever child-friendly fixed dose combinations (FDC) for treatment of drug-sensitive pediatric TB. These water dispersible FDCs are formulated in correct WHO recommended doses and have a fruity flavour. While, the hitherto available child unfriendly and inappropriate TB treatment has been blamed for poor adherence, poor treatment outcomes and increased risk of drug resistance, the uptake of the new FDCs has been rather slow. One year down the line, even though a total of 230,000 treatment courses have been ordered by over 30 countries, Kenya is the only country that has been able to actually roll them out through its public health program. 1st October 2016 onward each of the roughly 800 children diagnosed with TB every year in Kenya w...

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland Eleanor Frame …So said Eleanor Frame, an 18 year old teenager from UK, who survived TB. Eleanor shared her story at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool. She said that she had no idea about what TB was, and nether did her classmates, until she herself was diagnosed with it at the age of 14. And that lack of knowledge bred fear in her and discrimination from her friends who isolated her and also resulted in the delays in her diagnosis by her medical doctor. “It was dismissed as just a chuckle, a bad chest infection, not once but twice by my doctor, until my mother insisted on the test”, she said. “I sent my teacher an email to tell her that I was sick with TB and will not be in school for a while. She posted it on the school’s year board, and in a split second my whole class knew about my condition.” While speaking with CNS (Citizen News Service), Eleanor recalled vividly that on the day she was diagnosed with TB,...

Shobha Shukla - CNS (Citizen News Service) Dr Immaculate Kathure, Child TB Services Coordinator, Kenya National TB Programme Yes, this question merits serious thought, even as Kenya Ministry of Health recently announced the launch of fixed dose combination (FDC) of first-ever child-friendly TB medicines, making Kenya the first country in the world to roll out these products nationally. Starting 1st of October 2016, all children in Kenya, who will be initiated on TB treatment, will be given the improved formulation that is easier for caregivers to give and for children to take, and is expected to help improve treatment outcomes of childhood TB. It was on 2nd December, 2015, just ahead of 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, South Africa, that the world's first appropriate, child-friendly FDC medicines to treat children suffering from drug-sensitive TB were launched, thanks to the untiring efforts of TB Alliance and its partners: WHO, UNITAID and USAID. During th...