The childhood TB team was honoured  to receive the collaborating African scientists of the Reach4Kids Africa (R4KA) project and members of their National TB Control teams on August 7th and 8th at the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM. Colleagues from Mali, Nigeria and Tanzania attended the Annual Investigators meeting in order to report on the activities of the last 12 months, and to agree on the next steps and protocols for the remaining time of this 2 year grant.

The R4KA project has two objectives: to Find and Treat children with TB in The Gambia and the partner countries (FaT) and to Screen and Prevent (SaP) new cases amongst young children exposed to a case of TB at home.

Based on experience with the Reach4Kids program in The Gambia, which was facilitated through the MRC UK program grant awarded to Prof Kampmann, the team engaged additional sites and were awarded funding from the MRC Global Challenge Research Foundation (GCRF) scheme in 2017. The kick off meeting was held in Bamako last year, and this year in The Gambia.

To date, this project has already recruited 400 children that have been diagnosed with TB this year. Each partner country brought along a senior member of their National TB Control program and investigators from the field and the laboratory were also present. The approach for the SaP part of the study was discussed during the meeting, where the contact tracing and provision of prophylactic medication will be carried out by the national teams at sentinel sites in all 4 countries.