Tuberculosis: Children
(asked on 17th April 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the (a) vaccination status, (b) ethnicity, (c) travel history, (d) source of infection and (d) eligibility for NHS vaccine before infection diagnosed of children born in the UK that are aged between zero and five years old and have been diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Children are identified as a specific population group requiring actions in the joint UK Health Security Agency and NHS England plan, Tuberculosis (TB): action plan for England, 2021 to 2026, but there are no high-level indicators to report relating to TB in children as the number of infections and the rate of TB in children are low.
Enhanced surveillance involving rigorous data collection is carried out for all individuals with TB. For specific population groups where TB is more common, for example, those who have a social risk factor, detailed data analysis is presented in the Annual Reports for Tuberculosis in England, which are available at the following link:
Indicators to monitor actions are identified in the joint plan, which is available at the following link:
In 2023, 102 out of 259, or 39.4% of, children under 18 years old notified with TB with a known country of birth, were born in the United Kingdom. In the group of children aged between zero and four years old, the proportion born in the UK was 80.4%, or 41 out of 51 individuals.
Data on ethnicity are not reported separately for children due to small numbers. Information about travel history and source of infection is not available for this age group.
Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination coverage for eligible children is captured as part of the Cover of Vaccination Evaluated Rapidly programme. The latest quarterly national data available is for infants at age three months for children, born between April and June 2024, and at age 12 months, born between July and September 2023. Measured at three months, coverage in England was 78.4% and measured at 12 months, it was 84.1%. The full data is available at the following link:
The eligibility criteria for BCG in the UK is a selective risk-based programme targeting children with a parent or grandparent born in a high incidence country or infants in areas of the UK with high TB incidence. Further information is available at the following link: