Child TB problem far greater than thought

Twenty-five percent more children are falling ill with TB than the UN had thought, with more than 650,000 hit by the disease each year in the 22 worst affected countries, specialists said Wednesday. Reporting in The Lancet, they said that about 53 million children under 15 are living with latent TB infection, a condition that can develop into active TB at any time. A contagious disease of the lungs, TB is caused by a microbe called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Last year the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated there were 530,000 cases of active TB among children younger than 15 years in 2012.