TB biggest threat to HIV positive
By, The World Today, July 24, 2007
ELEANOR HALL: Scientists at an international AIDS conference in Sydney have warned that tuberculosis is the biggest killer of HIV-positive people and that more needs to be done to eradicate it.
While technology for HIV testing has improved over the last quarter of a century, the test for TB has not changed for a century. Yet TB remains one of the world's biggest killers. Lucinda Carter has our report.
LUCINDA CARTER: Tuberculosis has been around for thousands of years, and according to the World Health Organisation, nearly three billion people worldwide carry the disease. While most of these people do not ever develop symptoms, in 2004 alone it killed more than 1.5-million people.
And many of those are HIV-positive. UNAIDS TB/HIV advisor, Dr Alasdair Reid, says those with HIV currently develop and die from TB at an alarmingly high rate.
ALASDAIR REID: A third of the world in fact is infected with tuberculosis, but only one in 10 of them go on to have TB in their lifetime. If you get HIV, that changes to one person in 10 a year, not over their lifetime but in one year, will develop tuberculosis.
LUCINDA CARTER: TB is especially common in poor or developing regions, where testing and treatment for the disease is all but ignored. To draw attention to the issue, South African photographer and artist Damien Schumann has created a work called The Shack which is a life-size replica of a shanty dwelling filled with photographs showing the plight of families and people affected by HIV and TB.
DAMIEN SCHUMANN: The Shack has been incredible especially internationally because what we've been able to do with that is we give the viewer, like so many people who don't have the opportunity to come into the townships, with The Shack, we've got the opportunity of bringing the townships to them.
LUCINDA CARTER: Currently, the Asia Pacific region has one of the fastest growing epidemics of HIV in the world. But UNAIDS' Dr Alasdair Reid says good management of tuberculosis in that region will help these sufferers.
ALASDAIR REID: Asia Pacific has done really well in tuberculosis control. Globally, the Western Pacific region is the first to reach their international TB control targets and everybody thinks, "well TB is done and dusted", and that's not the case. And so, we can't take our eye off the ball, we have to keep our focus on major killers like tuberculosis.
LUCINDA CARTER: Organisers are hoping to take The Shack on the road, heading next to Canberra to get the attention of federal politicians. Visiting The Shack display in Sydney today, Dr Reid says he hopes it will encourage more funding of research into TB because that disease plays such an important role for HIV sufferers.
ALASDAIR REID: We really do have to spend more money on tuberculosis. We're dealing with drugs that are over 40 years old, there's been no new TB drugs for over 40 years, and the test that we use for tuberculosis is over 120 years old, and it's not very good in people living with HIV. So, we need urgent investment in research, and that's our main reason for bringing The Shack to this conference, it's to raise awareness amongst the HIV research community of the plight of tuberculosis.
ELEANOR HALL: That's United Nations' TB/HIV advisor, Dr Alasdair Reid, ending that report by Lucinda Carter.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1987003.htm
ELEANOR HALL: Scientists at an international AIDS conference in Sydney have warned that tuberculosis is the biggest killer of HIV-positive people and that more needs to be done to eradicate it.
While technology for HIV testing has improved over the last quarter of a century, the test for TB has not changed for a century. Yet TB remains one of the world's biggest killers. Lucinda Carter has our report.
LUCINDA CARTER: Tuberculosis has been around for thousands of years, and according to the World Health Organisation, nearly three billion people worldwide carry the disease. While most of these people do not ever develop symptoms, in 2004 alone it killed more than 1.5-million people.
And many of those are HIV-positive. UNAIDS TB/HIV advisor, Dr Alasdair Reid, says those with HIV currently develop and die from TB at an alarmingly high rate.
ALASDAIR REID: A third of the world in fact is infected with tuberculosis, but only one in 10 of them go on to have TB in their lifetime. If you get HIV, that changes to one person in 10 a year, not over their lifetime but in one year, will develop tuberculosis.
LUCINDA CARTER: TB is especially common in poor or developing regions, where testing and treatment for the disease is all but ignored. To draw attention to the issue, South African photographer and artist Damien Schumann has created a work called The Shack which is a life-size replica of a shanty dwelling filled with photographs showing the plight of families and people affected by HIV and TB.
DAMIEN SCHUMANN: The Shack has been incredible especially internationally because what we've been able to do with that is we give the viewer, like so many people who don't have the opportunity to come into the townships, with The Shack, we've got the opportunity of bringing the townships to them.
LUCINDA CARTER: Currently, the Asia Pacific region has one of the fastest growing epidemics of HIV in the world. But UNAIDS' Dr Alasdair Reid says good management of tuberculosis in that region will help these sufferers.
ALASDAIR REID: Asia Pacific has done really well in tuberculosis control. Globally, the Western Pacific region is the first to reach their international TB control targets and everybody thinks, "well TB is done and dusted", and that's not the case. And so, we can't take our eye off the ball, we have to keep our focus on major killers like tuberculosis.
LUCINDA CARTER: Organisers are hoping to take The Shack on the road, heading next to Canberra to get the attention of federal politicians. Visiting The Shack display in Sydney today, Dr Reid says he hopes it will encourage more funding of research into TB because that disease plays such an important role for HIV sufferers.
ALASDAIR REID: We really do have to spend more money on tuberculosis. We're dealing with drugs that are over 40 years old, there's been no new TB drugs for over 40 years, and the test that we use for tuberculosis is over 120 years old, and it's not very good in people living with HIV. So, we need urgent investment in research, and that's our main reason for bringing The Shack to this conference, it's to raise awareness amongst the HIV research community of the plight of tuberculosis.
ELEANOR HALL: That's United Nations' TB/HIV advisor, Dr Alasdair Reid, ending that report by Lucinda Carter.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1987003.htm
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