Stop TB Partnership Releases Progress Report on the Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015 (Switzerland)
Stop TB Partnership, www.stoptb.org, November 12, 2009
A Stop TB Partnership recent report found that progress has been made in reaching the milestones of the Global Plan to Stop TB. The report highlights include the availability of DOTS for 97 percent of the world’s population; the development of national strategic plans for TB control by approximately 155 countries, including all 22 nations on the WHO list of tuberculosis high-burden nations; and the exceeding of the treatment success milestone for the 2008 Global Plan. Drug resistance testing has tripled. Many countries have increased national activities to address HIV among TB patients; between 2005 and 2007, the percentage of TB patients tested for HIV in African countries with high prevalence of HIV increased from 14 to 41 percent. Read more [+/-]
Also, nine vaccine candidates are in Phase 1 clinical trials and three in Phase II trials. Detection of new smear-positive TB cases has slowed, which means the 78 percent 2010 milestone most likely will not be achieved. The majority of persons with multidrug-resistant TB are still not receiving proper treatment, and countries have not made enough progress in screening HIV-infected persons for TB or increasing the patients on preventive therapy. Stop TB has posited that research efforts are needed to accelerate the development of diagnostic tests for active TB disease at the first point of care. Also needed is accelerated research to find new drug candidates for TB treatment, and the provision of a new vaccine by 2015. The greatest problem in achieving these goals is funding. The hope of fulfilling the goals is seen as the strength of the Stop TB Partnership. The number of partners increased from 463 in 2005 to 965 in 2008.
If You Prevent HIV, You Can Prevent TB (Canada)
Winnipeg Free Press, www.winnipegfreepress.com, November 12, 2009, by Jen Skerritt, jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca
Canadian health officials are worried about the number of Manitoba First Nations people who are infected with HIV, as people with HIV are 50 times more likely to contract TB. They fear a similar rise in TB cases such as what is happening in Manitoba, where there is a high rate of HIV and TB coinfection among First Nations. According to Dr. Marissa Becker, Manitoba local infectious disease expert, about 10 to 12 per year of the province’s persons with active TB disease are coinfected with HIV. Read more [+/-]
Becker noted that the majority of the persons coinfected with HIV and TB are aboriginal, and the rest are immigrants. Medical experts are now encouraging every person in Manitoba who tests positive for TB infection to be tested for HIV and vice versa. Although only 10 percent of patients in Manitoba are coinfected with HIV and TB, health officials are monitoring the situation.
