New test for children expected to save hundreds of thousands

Scientists have unveiled a revolutionary way of screening children for tuberculosis, which they say will prevent hundreds of thousands each year from contracting the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

A multinational team based at the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in The Hague has developed a simple way of testing the stool samples of children under five. The method, which can be carried out in remote communities, would replace the current practice, which is invasive and normally only available in larger hospitals.

An estimated 240,000 children die from tuberculosis every year. The disease is curable and rarely deadly in infants if diagnosed and treated in time.

As much as 90% of tuberculosis deaths in children are untreated cases.

The current test relies on the patient providing a sample of sputum phlegm from the lower windpipe. The sample is analysed by a special machine, which gives a result.

But as children under five cannot spit up sputum, doctors have to submit them to an invasive and painful procedure that often requires staying the night in hospital.

Researchers found a way of testing children’s stool samples in the same manner, meaning there would be no need for them to travel to a large health facility.

“The potential of this method is enormous and means we have a method in our hands that can diagnose TB at the lowest healthcare level and bring testing to hundreds of thousands of people,” said Kitty van Weezenbeek, executive director of the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, which developed the method.

Petra de Haas, laboratory consultant at KNCV, said the test could save many of the 650 children who die of tuberculosis every day.

“This is a real breakthrough because this can be done in small laboratories,” she said.

Tuberculosis killed at least 1.7 million people in 2017, according to the World Health Organisation, making the airborne infection the world’s deadliest infectious disease.