The May 2026 issue of The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health carries an editorial on child tuberculosis.
Paediatric TB: celebrating the people behind the progress
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(26)00071-4/fulltext
Below are extracts and a comment from me:
'Paediatric TB is exemplary in having a clear consensus on priority paediatric drug formulations for development and strong global clinical practice guidelines and operational handbooks providing practical information at all levels of care.'
'Despite these concerted efforts of the paediatric TB community, gaps remain in coverage of preventive therapy (received by only 37% of eligible household contacts aged <5 years) and treatment (received by only 42% of children aged <5 years
and 55% of children aged 5–14 years with TB disease in 2022). Treatment success in children is 92%, but devastatingly 96% of child TB deaths occur in the absence of treatment.'
COMMENT (NPW): The editorial doesn't say it, but this represents a shocking failure of knowledge translation. The first three components of the global evidence ecosystem are in good shape: research, journal publication and synthesis. But the other three components - repackaging, availing and applying the evidence are woefully inadequate. https://www.hifa.org/about-hifa
It is estimated that 200,000 to 239,000 children (under age 15) die from tuberculosis (TB) every year. Almost all of them die without receiving treatment.
What is missing is an understanding of the quantitative contributions of lack of reliable healthcare information versus other factors (such as lack of medicines).
I would like to propose this topic for a 1-week deep-dive on the HIFA and CHIFA forums. If an interested organisation or individual would like to sponsor this (£500) please let me know.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org