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Oxford Immunotec are fundraising for TB Alert and are entering four teams into the Blenheim Palace Triathlon. The teams are as follows:

Team A

Swimming: Kirsty Whigham             

Cycling: Peter Wrighton-Smith

Running: George Solaja

 Team B

Swimming: Carly Hayles

Cycling: Tash Chapman

Running: Jennie Farley 

Team C

Swimming: Jenny Best

Cycling: Jacob Caudle

Running: Ben Hamilton 

Team D

Swimming: Darragh O'Brien

Cycling: Angela Dunford

Running: Emily Turri

Of the nine million people who become ill with TB every year, three million of them don’t get the care they need. Many of these people live in poor, isolated communities, outside the formal health service. With resources to tackle TB already stretched, finding and caring for them just hasn’t been the priority. It’s these people that TB Alert is trying to reach — to ensure that they can get diagnosed and treated as quickly and effectively as possible.

TB in children is commonly neglected. It is difficult to diagnose, so the scale of the problem is often underestimated. Children are also less likely to pose an infection risk to others, so where resources are scarce childhood TB is simply not the priority.

Yet the impact of TB in children is devastating: in 2013 more than 550,000 children became ill with TB — and 80,000 died from the illness. Children are also more likely to be left severely disabled by TB, as they are more vulnerable to complex forms of the disease such as TB meningitis.

TB affects the youngest and weakest children. Those living with HIV are particularly at risk, as are those suffering from malnutrition, common childhood infections and intestinal worms.

Children are most likely to be infected with TB by their parents and other close relatives. Many families live in overcrowded living conditions, which increases a child’s risk of infection.

In the developing world, large family sizes are common and several generations of a family often live together under one roof. Tuberculosis is a particular problem in refugee camps, slums and shanty towns – where many people live in close proximity, in make-shift accommodation.

The impact of TB on children is far reaching. If the family breadwinner becomes ill with TB, this can drive a family into ever deeper poverty. Children miss out on school as a result of illness or because they have to look after a sick relative or earn money themselves. This perpetuates the cycle of poverty.  WHO estimates that 10 million children have been orphaned by TB, making them more likely to live in poverty and die young themselves.

In any country, tuberculosis tends to be concentrated in urban areas. In poorer communities in the UK, many people also live in inadequate conditions, where TB is more likely to spread.

Every day, more than 24,000 people fall ill with TB, and more than 4,000 of them die – despite the fact that TB is curable. Although the world has succeeded in reversing the incidence of TB by 2015, more funding, research and political commitment to TB is required to tackle TB in the longer term.

While rates of TB are falling globally, the UK is bucking that trend. Cases in the UK began to rise steadily in 1987, and now hover around 8,000 cases annually.

For more information on the work of TB Alert, visit their website http://www.tbalert.org/about-tb/

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