E-DRUG: Combining TB Treatment with HIV Testing and Treatment
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[crossposted from AFRO-NETS; WB]
Combining TB Treatment with HIV Testing and Treatment Could Save
Lives of up To 500 000 HIV-Positive Africans Every Year
Joint UNAIDS WHO Press Release
Joint call for action follows Mandela's plea at Bangkok Interna-
tional AIDS Conference to strengthen fight against tuberculosis
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 21 September 2004 - Expanding access to
tuberculosis treatment, combined with introducing HIV testing
and anti-retroviral (ARV) delivery into TB programmes, could
save the lives of as many as 500 000 Africans living with HIV
every year and is one of the most cost-effective ways to ensure
the survival of HIV-positive people, according to international
health experts meeting this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Joint TB and HIV interventions are among the best ways to accel-
erate access to ARVs and to help reach the "3 by 5" target of 3
million people on HIV treatment by the end of 2005, according to
WHO and UNAIDS. "If we jointly tackle TB and HIV, we can be much
more effective in controlling both diseases," said Dr Peter
Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director.
Of the estimated 25 million Africans now living with HIV, about
8 million also harbour the bacillus that causes TB. Each year,
5-10% of these 8 million co-infected people develop active TB
and up to half, or 4 million, will develop the disease at some
point in their lives.
Without TB treatment, HIV infected people with TB typically die
within months. Yet national TB programmes in Africa are cur-
rently treating less than half of all HIV-positive people with
active TB - despite the fact that they respond just as well to
TB treatment as HIV-negative people, and the cost of TB drugs is
as low as $10 per patient. But few TB patients are currently of-
fered an HIV test, and only a handful receive ARVs. Providing
ARVs to HIV infected TB patients is now a WHO 'standard of care'
policy.
"As we scale up efforts to increase access to ARVs in Africa we
must simultaneously help people living with HIV survive their
bouts episodes with tuberculosis," said Jack Chow, Assistant Di-
rector-General of the World Health Organization. "This is one of
the most effective ways we can help save lives in Africa."
The lack of attention to the risk TB poses for people living
with HIV was highlighted by Nelson Mandela at the recent XV In-
ternational AIDS Conference in Bangkok in July. "TB is too often
a death sentence for people with AIDS," Mandela said. "Today we
are calling on the world to recognize that we can't fight AIDS
unless we do much more to fight TB as well."