According to a report issued today, November 2, by the Forum for Collaborative AIDS Research, a co-epidemic of HIV and tuberculosis is ravaging sub-Saharan Africa, with about one-third of the world’s 40 million people with HIV also carrying TB (allafrica.com, 11/2).
Coupled with HIV, the mortality rate for TB is made five times higher. The co-infection puzzles scientists and health officials who cannot seem to diagnose, treat or contain the epidemic with any success. Making matters worse are cases of drug-resistant TB in areas with high HIV prevalence.
“Now the eye of the storm is in sub-Saharan Africa, where half of new TB cases are HIV co-infected, and where drug-resistant TB is silently spreading,” says Veronica Miller, a co-author of the report and director of the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research. “Unlike bird flu, the global threat of HIV/TB is not hypothetical. It is here now. But the science and coordination needed to stop it are utterly insufficient.”
