TB HIV co-epidemics
Despite TB being preventable and curable, even one TB or AIDS death is a death too many - as we have the tools to avert it. If we deploy the tools in people-centred, community-led and science-backed ways, we can do so much more than we currently are in HIV and TB responses.
According to the WHO Global TB Report 2023, over 11,000 people with HIV died of TB in 2022 in India. Each of these deaths could have been averted. It is a grim reminder of our collective failure to provide integrated and colocated TB and HIV services to people in need over the years.
Gains made by lifesaving antiretroviral therapy and people-centred and rights-based HIV programmes are threatened with lack of action to prevent all, find all, and treat all TB. We have the tools that have proven to work. Failure to deploy them in a timely and socially just manner will wither away the gains made in the fight against AIDS. The possibility to end TB and AIDS depends on if we are successful in putting people first at all levels of the response - everywhere.
Shobha Shukla - CNS, Bobby Ramakant - CNS (Citizen News Service)
(Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant lead the editorial at CNS (Citizen News Service) and are on the board of Global Antimicrobial Resistance Media Alliance (GAMA). CNS is an official media partner of AIDS 2024. Follow them on twitter @Shobha1Shukla, @BobbyRamakant)
- Shared under Creative Commons (CC)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
