It’€™s an ancient disease and completely curable. Yet, more than 2,4-m Africans are infected with tuberculosis and at least 540 000 die annually. Africa has become the epicenter of the TB epidemic and health leaders meeting in Addis Ababa this week have realised this is where they have put resources if they want to halt the disease globally.

African and international health and development leaders met for two days in Ethiopia, releasing a detailed ‘€œRoad Map’€ to halt the continent’€™s spiraling TB epidemic, which in combination with HIV is overwhelming health services in the region.

The Road Map in essence calls for the establishment of an African Stop TB Partnership to build greater political commitment by governments to fight the disease, and for the African Union and NEPAD to mainstream TB control into the region’€™s health and development agenda.

The Road Map estimates that U$1,1-billion (Over R6-billion) will be needed in 2006 and 2007 to strengthen TB programmes and scale up measures to address HIV-associated TB in Africa.

Dr Paul Nunn, co-ordinator of the World Health Organisation team in the Stop TB Department defined the four main pillars of the Road Map as:

• Huge political commitment as Africa becomes the global battleground for TB. This would need to happen if there was any hope of reaching the Millennium Development Goals.
• A concerted move to strengthen health systems, already buckling under the increasing load.
• A strengthening of the DOTS system that is well equipped to deal with the epidemic.
• Specific measures in Africa to address the co-infection of TB and HIV or AIDS.

According to the WHO, TB incidence rates have tripled since 1990 in 21 African countries with high levels of HIV. Of the 15 countries in the world with the highest TB rates today, 13 are in Africa.

Over the last decade, DOTS programmes have diagnosed and treated millions of TB patients in Africa, and the results are remarkable in some countries, according to a media release by the Stop TB Partnership.

Ethiopia, which has implemented the DOTS programme, has an annual Gross Domestic Product per capita of U$100 (R600), yet it has TB cure rates comparable with countries that are 30 times richer.

However, performance of the region’€™s TB programmes is limited by the impact of HIV and by persistent health system constraints, especially the lack of sufficient trained staff. In sub-Saharan Africa there is one health worker per 1 000 population, compared to the global average of four.

For further information on the Stop TB Programme click here.