Contact evaluation

Abstract

Since children usually get the tuberculosis (TB) bacillus from adult TB cases, TB problem in childhood is one of the most important indicators of the effectiveness of adult TB control programs. When an adult is diagnosed with TB, when contact screening is performed, children younger than 5 years of age should be carefully evaluated, because in this age group, there is a higher risk of developing post-infectious disease, and severe forms of the disease such as miliary TB and TB meningitis. Therefore; contact screening and treatment in adult TB patients are very important in preventing TBrelated morbidity and mortality in children. The contact is usually within the household members, but may also occur in the school, nursery, nursing home or other confined places. At the contact stage, tuberculin skin test (TST) is negative, chest X-ray is normal, and the child has no signs and symptoms of the disease. With the contact examination, those who are sick and those who are infected are detected. Contact examination in pediatric patients generally aims to find the source case.