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Presentation: Tuberculosis (TB) in Canada with Focus on Children and Adolescents
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Time: Sunday Afternoon
Purpose: To review the epidemiology of Tuberculosis in Canada and the clinical presentation and of TB disease in childhood and adolescence
Objectives:
Describe the changing epidemiology of tuberculosis in Canada including the burden of TB disease among different populations of new Canadians.
Contrast the limited infectious risk posed by most children with TB from that posed by adolescents and accompanying adults.
Distinguish how tuberculosis disease in children differs from that in and adolescents and adults in clinical presentation and severity.
Associate Professor, Pediatrics, University of Toronto
Bio:
Dr. Ian Kitai attended medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa where he received graduation prizes in Pediatrics and Internal Medicine. Following internships he worked in the United Kingdom for 2 years, obtaining his Pediatric MRCP. He then joined the Oxfam medical program to Zimbabwe and worked at a former mission hospital for 3 years. From 1983-6 he was senior registrar and lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. He immigrated to Canada in 1986; undertaking further training in Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. He also worked in Northern Manitoba with the Northern Medical Unit of the University of Manitoba.
For the past 10 years he has been the Tuberculosis Specialist at Sickkids in Toronto and a staff member in the Division of Infectious Diseases there. He also has a consulting practice in pediatrics and infectious diseases in Ajax, Ontario and is a member of Department of Pediatrics at the Rouge Valley Health System. From 2003 he also served as medical consultant to the infection control department in this system which included hospitals close to the center of the SARS outbreak: for his work in preventing SARS transmission to staff and patients Dr Kitai received the Council award of the College of The Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 2003.
Dr Kitai’s research interests include the clinical presentation of Tuberculosis at different ages, and the use of Interferon Gamma Release Assays in evaluating TB contacts. He is the author of many research publications as well as guidelines and a manual for the management of pediatric TB. He is a member of the Ontario Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee- communicable diseases subcommittee and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto.