Tuberculosis is the number one infectious cause of death worldwide¹ but remains underappreciated as a cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Because many children have difficulty expectorating sputum and because paediatric tuberculosis is usually pauci-bacillary and often extra-pulmonary, paediatric tuberculosis is especially difficult to diagnose with standard sputum-based assays. Predicted associations between paediatric and adult tuberculosis burden^2,3 place paediatric incidence at 10% of total global tuberculosis incidence, but tuberculosis notification rates (already inadequate in adults) are lowest in children, with roughly 40% of incident cases in children younger than 15 years having been diagnosed and notified in 2015.

中文翻译：

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儿童结核病：计数不足和治疗不足

结核病是全世界死亡的头号感染原因¹，但仍然低估的发病原因和死亡的儿童。由于许多儿童排痰困难，并且小儿结核病通常是脓性细菌，常常是肺外结核，因此小儿结核病尤其难以通过基于标准痰液的检测方法进行诊断。儿科和成人结核病负担之间的预测关联^2,3使儿科发病率占全球结核病总发病率的10％，但儿童的结核病报告率（成人已经不足）最低，在15岁以下的儿童中约有40％的发病率已在2015年被诊断并通知了很多年。