Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies (JSSHRS)

Closing the Missing Children Gap: Paediatric Tuberculosis Case-Finding Through School-Based, Child-Led Screening in Kakamega, Kenya

Barasa, PhD, Francis O., Amunga, Dennis, Kibebe, Leonard

27 August 2026 · Vol. 2, Issue 8, pp. 1591-1596

DOI: 10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E8/2026-27

Abstract

Kenya's NTLD-P targets children as 10–15% of all notified tuberculosis (TB) cases, a target the country has struggled to meet. This study examines the paediatric TB care cascade generated by the Kenya Innovation Challenge Tuberculosis (KIC-TB) project's school-based, child-led screening model in Kakamega, asking whether it displays the sex-based inequity previously documented among adults reached by the same programme, and whether its paediatric contribution meets national case-finding benchmarks. This is a retrospective, descriptive and analytical study of programmatic screening data from the NFM3 funding phase (July 2021–June 2024), the period for which complete, sex-disaggregated paediatric records are available. The care cascade: screened, presumptive, investigated, diagnosed, and linked to treatment was analysed by sex using chi-square and Fisher's exact tests, with odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals, and benchmarked against national and global literature. Of 266,943 children screened, 214 were diagnosed with TB (117 bacteriologically confirmed) and all were linked to treatment (100%). No significant sex difference was found at any cascade stage (all p > 0.17). Children accounted for 23.2% of all TB cases diagnosed, exceeding national targets, with bacteriological confirmation (54.7%) above typical global figures (20–30%), though the number needed to screen (1,247) exceeded the pooled global school-setting estimate (464). School-based, child-led screening can close a meaningful share of Kenya's paediatric case-finding gap without introducing sex-based inequity, and current evidence supports expanding this channel rather than treating it as an unproven pilot.

Keywords: paediatric tuberculosis, case detection gap, school-based screening, child-led screening, Kenya, care cascade, gender equity, active case-finding

Read the full text on Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies →The full peer-reviewed article and PDF are hosted on the journal's site (the version of record).

Barasa, PhD, Francis O., Amunga, Dennis, Kibebe, & Leonard (2026). Closing the Missing Children Gap: Paediatric Tuberculosis Case-Finding Through School-Based, Child-Led Screening in Kakamega, Kenya. Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies, 2(8), 1591-1596. https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E8/2026-27

@article{Barasa2026,
  title   = {Closing the Missing Children Gap: Paediatric Tuberculosis Case-Finding Through School-Based, Child-Led Screening in Kakamega, Kenya},
  author  = {Barasa and PhD and Francis O. and Amunga and Dennis and Kibebe and Leonard},
  journal = {Journal of Social Science and Human Research Studies},
  year    = {2026},
  volume  = {2},
  number  = {8},
  pages   = {1591-1596},
  doi     = {10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E8/2026-27},
  url     = {https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E8/2026-27}
}

← Back to all articles