WHO estimates that 1 million children become ill with tuberculosis every year, and approximately 230,000 die. Children made up one-tenth of the estimated 10 million people worldwide who developed TB in 2017, but confirming diagnosis in children is challenging, creating critical delays in starting treatment.

At the U.N. General Assembly high-level meeting in September 2018, heads of state committed to ending the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030. An agreement was signed at the meeting that promised $2 billion a year for TB research. Infectious Diseases in Children asked two experts — Mario C. Raviglione, FRCP (UK), FERS, Hon RSP (RF), professor of global health at the University of Milan and the Global Studies Institute of the University of Geneva, and former director of WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Program, and Lisa V. Adams, MD, associate dean of global health at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth — what research should be a priority in an effort to end the global epidemic of TB in children.