WHO report: The good and bad news on TB
JournAIDS
12 October 2011
Today the World Health Organisation (WHO) released its Global Tuberculosis Control report. One of the major findings highlighted in the report was a global decrease in the amount of people being infected with and dying of this curable condition.
Looking locally, however, the situation is far grimmer.
South Africa has by far the most cases of HIV/TB co-infection in the world and TB continues to be the leading cause of death among people living with HIV.
But according to the WHO, efforts to curb the carnage are heading in the right direction. South Africa has the largest percentage of HIV/TB co-infected patients enrolled in antiretroviral treatment (ART) programmes.
However the report suggest that further measures are still needed to pull the fat out of the fire.
Multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) strains of TB represent the newest and perhaps toughest challenge to middle and low-income countries in the BRICS (Brazil, Russian federation, India, China and South Africa) group.
Successfully addressing MDR TB makes huge demands on these countries’ already limited resources and requires expert medical knowledge - a rare commodity in most public healthcare sectors.
Click here to read the report.
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