Gains in combating TB threatened by AIDS, says Red Cross Red Crescent
24 March 2003

Global efforts to counteract a tuberculosis (TB) emergency are being greatly threatened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies today on World TB Day.

TB is now the single biggest killer of people with HIV/AIDS, while HIV represents the greatest threat to activating latent TB infection into full-blown disease. An individual with HIV/AIDS is 10 times more likely to develop TB and some studies indicate that TB may even accelerate the natural progress of HIV/AIDS itself.

“Both TB and HIV/AIDS also carry a social stigma which not only marginalizes the people who have them, but ensures the diseases continue to spread even further because of the silence people feel they are forced to keep. The only way to stop one disease is to stop the other. To do this we have to mobilise communities in fighting both diseases, particularly those who personally have experience of them,” said Terhi Heinasmaki, the International Federation’s TB advisor.

Although incidence levels of the disease, which was declared a global emergency in 1993 by the World Health Organisation (WHO), have stabilised since 2000, the erosion of these achievements by AIDS is inevitable.

“Significant interventions by health ministries, WHO and organisations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent have been responsible for the gains made in combating TB in recent years,” added Heinasmaki. “But now, the AIDS pandemic is refuelling the TB epidemic. More and more, people with HIV/AIDS are succumbing to the disease. In South Africa alone, 50 per cent of people with TB are also HIV positive.”

Latest figures indicate that there are more than 3.6 million people with TB around the world, with 22 countries accounting for 80 per cent of the global TB case load. Worst affected is South East Asia which accounts for nearly 1.4 million cases, followed by the western Pacific region and Africa. The most alarming increases in TB infection rates in recent years, however, have been in Africa and Eastern Europe – a reflection of HIV/AIDS trends.

The International Federation in recent years has been combining its TB and HIV/AIDS programmes in Eastern Europe, particularly Russia where every year, TB kills more than 30,000 people. Intervention is largely focusing on health education and ensuring people with TB complete their course of medical treatment in order to avoid developing drug-resistance. Due to the steep increase also in infection rates in Africa, the International Federation is now also in the process of expanding its TB activities on the continent through existing home care programmes for people with HIV/AIDS.

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The Geneva-based International Federation promotes the humanitarian activities of 181 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies among vulnerable people. By coordinating international disaster relief and encouraging development support, it seeks to prevent and alleviate human suffering. The Federation, National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross together, constitute the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.