Identificación, evaluación y seguimiento de niños menores de cinco años en contacto con pacientes con tuberculosis en el Pacífico colombiano

Contacts study of patients with tuberculosis (tb) is one of the most efficient activity to detect new tb cases. objectives. To determine the activities and how the study of contacts of <5 years of adult patients with tb is carried out. methods. Children under five years of age who were living with adults diagnosed with pulmonary tb in 30 municipalities of the department of Chocó, Colombian Pacific Coast, in 2012 were identified. Visits were made to the municipalities and the treatment cards and clinical histories of the adult patients were reviewed, identifying those contacts under five years of age, and studies carried out on each of them. A descriptive analysis and a multivariate analysis were performed. results. In 159 cases of the adults with tb, 103 contacts under five years of age were identified, 61 (59.2%) had some type of evaluation, none with clinical or laboratory complete evaluation. Signs and symptoms were evaluated between 55.4% and 63.3% of the contacts, tuberculin was administered in 25.2%, chest X-ray in 22.2%, direct examination sputum in 14.5% and gastric aspirate cultures in 1.9% of the patients. Thirteen (21.3%) of the contacts were diagnosed and treated as latent tb and eight (13.1%) as active tb. Tuberculin administration was associated with treatment for latent tb (or: 11.4) and evaluation of lymphadenopathy with treatment for active tb (or: 9.04). conclusions. Study of contact children of adult patients with tb, represents a challenge for health systems due to the complexity of the diagnosis. Community teams are required to identify these children and perform the necessary tests to diagnose tuberculosis and initiate timely treatment.