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Dr Javeria Bukhari, Dr Kinza Khan Babar, Dr Abeera Abdul Ghaffar
Aim: To estimate the bacterio-epidemiological situation of childhood respiratory tuberculosis in Pakistan. Place and |Duration: In the Department of Community medicine and Pediatric department of Nishter Hospital Multan for one-year duration from February 2019 to February 2020. Methods: 2185 symptomatic patients of 0-14 years old were studied. Among 110 bacteriologically confirmed cases, 60% were less than five years old and the number of females was slightly more than males. Results and Conclusion: In 21 % of patients, the Mantoux test was negative. None of the miliary cases had a history of BCG vaccination. In 54.6% of patients less than two years old, one of the family members was suffering from infectious tuberculosis. Clinical findings were fever, cough, weight loss and respiratory distress respectively. Radiological findings were mostly pneumonia or bronchopneumonia-like infiltrations and in 44% of cases were found in the right lung. Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in 11.7% of patients were resistant to isoniazid or streptomycin. Key words: respiratory tuberculosis, pneumonia, Clinical findings, bacterio-epidemiological situation.