mother and children

Problematic

  • A majority of children with TB are not diagnosed/not reported and do not benefit from appropriate treatment.
  • This is due to the poor access to childhood TB diagnosis in many health centres, especially at district and primary healthcare level in most high-burden countries.
  • It is difficult to diagnose TB from sputum in children because many of them do not produce sputum.
  • Effective, affordable and easy-to-use diagnostic and sample collection tools are still lacking.
  • Qualified human resources are insufficient.
  • There is no systematic detection of TB in highly vulnerable children (severely malnourished, HIV-infected, and children with severe pneumonia).

The project

  • The TB-Speed project will carry out research activities aiming at reducing childhood mortality from TB by evaluating innovative and cost-effective TB diagnostic approaches for resource-limited settings.
  • Implemented in seven countries of Africa and Asia: Cambodia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia.
  • Its multidisciplinary consortium under the leadership of the University of Bordeaux associates researchers, technical experts, health professionals, public health program managers and NON-Governmental Organizations from both high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries.
map project
stars flowers mother and daughter
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2 Major Axes

Decentralisation of TB diagnosis at district level

Systematic TB detection in vulnerable children

  • Local capacity building for clinical diagnosis of paediatric TB
  • Enhancement of early detection of paediatric TB
  • Increase in the number of reported cases
  • Generation of relevant evidence on public health impact of the strategies