The Particularities of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Children with Type 1 Diabetes: About 2 Cases

Abstract

The combination of pulmonary tuberculosis and type 1 diabetes is a significant public health problem, especially in developing countries, where the incidence of both diseases is rising sharply. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2022, 23% of tuberculosis cases will be in Africa. Morocco is one of the countries with a medium incidence of tuberculosis. The Ministry of Health has launched a national strategic plan for the prevention and control of tuberculosis. However, there is no national study on the prevalence of tuberculosis in diabetic children in Morocco. Several studies in the literature have investigated the specifics of this association, and have shown that there is a two-way association between tuberculosis and type 1 diabetes. Latent tuberculosis is most common in diabetic children, while active tuberculosis can give rise to severe and atypical presentations. In this study 2 cases have been reported of type 1 diabetes associated with pulmonary tuberculosis, of varying severity, in a 15-year-old child known to be diabetic and an 18-month-old infant with inaugural diabetes, in order to determine the clinical, paraclinical, therapeutic and evolutionary particularities of tuberculosis in these children.