TB and HIV treatment must be integrated
A group of high-level TB experts have identified four tasks that need to be implemented before the end of 2009 if southern Africa has any hope of changing the course of the TB-HIV epidemic.
These are: testing many more HIV positive people for TB, integrating and decentralisingTB and HIV services, better infection control and better prevention and treatment of drug resistant TB (both MDR and XDR).
The tasks are contained in a report released on the eve of the 38h Annual World Conference on the Lung Health in Cape Town.
The report, compiled by both health experts and activists, slams the fact that while the HIV epidemic in southern Africa has received widespread global attention, the equally extensive TB epidemic in the region is practically hidden.
‘That is a grave and deadly mistake,’ says the report titled Confronting the Crisis of TB and HIV in Southern Africa.
The report offers ways in which the four crucial tasks can be achieved and advocated for within the next two years.
‘TB is by far the greatest killer of people living with HIV in the region and the average HIV prevalence in new TB cases is greater than 50 percent,’ says the report.
‘In general, if untreated, TB in people living with HIV leads to death in weeks.’
Nine of the 15 countries in the world with the highest estimated TB incidence (new infection) rates are in southern Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.
The tasks are the outcome of the Emergency Southern Africa Advocacy Summit on TB and HIV that was held in Johannesburg in August.
Convened by the AIDS Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), the Southern African AIDS Treatment Access Movement and Treatment Action Campaign, the summit was attended by over 75 representatives countries in the Southern African Development Community, people living with HIV/AIDS, donor and international agencies. ‘ Health-e News Service.
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