{"id":28976,"date":"2016-09-28T02:35:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T02:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/tb-drug-designed-for-children-launched-in-kenya\/"},"modified":"2016-09-28T02:35:17","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T02:35:17","slug":"tb-drug-designed-for-children-launched-in-kenya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/tb-drug-designed-for-children-launched-in-kenya\/","title":{"rendered":"TB drug designed for children launched in Kenya"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The world’s first drug specifically designed to treat tuberculosis in children has been launched in Kenya.}<\/p>\n

The new pill is a combination of three drugs used to treat tuberculosis, mixed in the right dosage, and is fruit-flavoured to appeal to children.<\/p>\n

Until now, the global TB Alliance says pills designed for adults have been split to get the dosage for children.<\/p>\n

Every year, about a million children fall ill with TB, which is the world’s deadliest infectious disease.<\/p>\n

In 2014, an estimated 140,000 children died of TB, according to global figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n

Kenya is the first country to roll out the new drug nationally, with more countries expected to follow over the next three years.<\/p>\n

Experts say the new treatment will be more effective because the components have been measured accurately and the pill is not bitter-tasting.<\/p>\n

What is it like to live in a TB hotspot? Anne Soy, BBC Africa health correspondent:
\nAt Majengo slum in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, a dark corridor leads to Helen Chebet’s one-roomed home, where she lives with her family of six.<\/p>\n

The mud-walled building, reinforced with rusty iron sheets, has very few windows and the only source of natural light in the space she rents comes from a tiny transparent panel installed in the roof.<\/p>\n

Living conditions like these, crowded and with poor ventilation, are cited as contributing factors to the transmission of tuberculosis.<\/p>\n

This year, both Ms Chebet and her two youngest children were diagnosed with tuberculosis, after several failed attempts to treat for other possible infections. Her 15-month-old daughter Chepkoech was put on a six-month course of antibiotics, which required her to take six tablets a day.<\/p>\n

Ms Chebet tried to hide the drug in the toddler’s food, but her strategy did not work.
\n“One particular drug was difficult to split and dissolve in water… I had to grind it,” Ms Chebet says adding that Chepkoech could only stand the bitter-tasting drugs for the first two months.<\/p>\n

The new drug dissolves easily in water, making it easier to take every day for the six-month treatment period.<\/p>\n

“Caregivers can easily give up knowing how difficult it is to give children such medicine,” Kenya’s head of TB programmes Dr Enos Masini told the BBC.<\/p>\n

It is not only Kenya, which begins rolling out the drug for free from 1 October, where TB sufferers are expected to benefit.<\/p>\n

More than 20 countries have expressed interest in introducing the pill, says Dr Cherise Scott from the TB Alliance, the global non-governmental organisation that spearheaded the production of the new drug.<\/p>\n

“The new child-friendly pill will boost survival,” Dr Scott adds.<\/p>\n

Africa has the highest prevalence of TB of any continent.<\/p>\n

The global TB death rate has dropped by almost a half between 1990 and 2015, the WHO says.<\/p>\n

{{Tuberculosis symptoms}}<\/p>\n

A persistent cough, usually for more than three weeks<\/p>\n

Night sweats for weeks or months<\/p>\n

Weight loss<\/p>\n

Fatigue<\/p>\n

High temperature<\/p>\n

Shortness of breath<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The world’s first drug specifically designed to treat tuberculosis in children has been launched in Kenya.} The new pill is a combination of three drugs used to treat tuberculosis, mixed in the right dosage, and is fruit-flavoured to appeal to children. Until now, the global TB Alliance says pills designed for adults have been split […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}