Administering second-line antituberculous medications to children with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: A qualitative study
“I had one father tell me his boy eats more pills than food for breakfast.” TB physician, 32 years old, South Africa
There are more than 65,000 children living with multidrugresistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in the world today, and, while children have excellent outcomes from MDR-TB therapy, fewer than 1%
are diagnosed and treated for their disease. Even when a child is started on a regimen containing second-line drugs to treat MDR-TB, there are significant barriers to completing successful therapy and achieving cure. Almost none of these drugs is available in a child-friendly formulation.
We completed interviews with five nurses and four physicians from Peru, South Africa, Georgia, Romania and Bangladesh about the challenges of administering second-line drugs to
children. This poster presents data and quotes from those interviews.