Urgent TB-HIV Sign On Letter - 4 June Deadline

[Guest guest]

NOTE: APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTINGS! PLEASE

RESPOND DIRECTLY TO MATT KAVANAGH AT MKAVANAGH@...

BY WEDNESDAY, 4 JUNE.

Dear HIV and

TB Advocates & NGOs…

On June 9th,

in advance of the UN High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, there will be a “HIV-TB

Global Leaders' Forum.” As civil society groups, it is critical

that we use this opportunity to articulate our demands for bold action and

specific, concrete outcomes: where’s the plan, where’s the money,

where’s the programming on the ground? TB, despite being curable,

remains the leading cause of death amongst PLWHA. Public health and human

rights demand that urgent action is taking now to stop the unconscionable death

of PLWHA due to a curable disease.

We hope

that you will join us in signing onto this letter and Civil Society Call to

Action and join us in seeking to hold all of our governments and agencies

accountable for bold action to reach universal access on high quality TB-HIV

services and stop the unnecessary deaths of PLWHAs from TB!

PLEASE

RETURN SIGNATURES BY WEDS JUNE 4 TO:

Matt

Kavanagh at mkavanaghresults (DOT) org

In Solidarity,

a

Akugizibwe, AIDS and Rights Alliance

for Southern Africa

Matt

Kavanagh, RESULTS Educational Fund

Javid

Syed, Treatment Action Group

Open Letter to the

Governments of the World:

As leaders

gather in New York

for the “Global Leaders Forum on TB/HIV,” we write as civil society

groups, advocates, researchers, and groups of people living with TB and HIV

from around the world to demand concrete action on TB and HIV.

We express our

collective outrage that TB, despite being curable for over a half century,

continues to be the leading cause of death of People Living With HIV/AIDS

(PLWH/A). We call on governments and multilateral institutions to take bold and

concrete action—and commit ourselves to the same—to ensure that

every person in need receives high quality TB and HIV treatment, prevention,

diagnostics and care.

Enclosed here

you will find a call to action from Civil Society—as we add our voices to

the leaders gathered in New

York June 9th. In 2006, the UN

Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS called for “accelerated scale-up of

collaborative activities on tuberculosis and HIV, in line with the Global Plan

to Stop TB.” Since then some nations have seen major scale-up, but the

vast majority of people with TB/HIV co-infection still do not have access to

coordinated services.

The world must

treat TB/HIV as the crisis that it is. In Sub-Saharan Africa currently up to

50% of people living with HIV will develop TB—they are 30 times more

likely to develop active TB. Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) TB, including

Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) TB, is poised to become the next

pandemic—and already has frighteningly high mortality amongst people with

HIV. An effective response must be mobilized immediately.

We

understand that, if universal access to existing high quality TB/HIV care and

services were available by 2015, we could likely cut the current mortality

rates by 80%--saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people each

year. As a matter of urgency, we call upon governments

of the world to move beyond declarations and provide the plans, the resources, and the effective

programs to stop these intertwined pandemics.

We

demand that governments immediately and

publicly announce:

UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO HIGH QUALITY

TB/HIV CARE BY 2015: By 2015, in high burden areas,

every person living with HIV should be screened for TB, every person with

TB should be offered HIV counseling and testing, and treatment,

prevention, and care must be universally available and coordinated for

both diseases. This must be coordinated with a scale up to Universal

Access on HIV by 2010.

FULL FUNDING: Donor

and high burden country governments must announce specifically how they

will fund the at least $19 billion through 2015 needed to

ensure existing high quality TB/HIV care is available to all and that new

tools are on the way.

REDUCE TB/HIV MORTALITY:

Country plans should monitor progress to reduce mortality to no more than

90,000 by 2010 and 50,000 by 2015—an 80% reduction over our current

course.

21st CENTURY

DIAGNOSTICS & TREATMENT: A tangible global

commitment must be announced to developing and ensuring access to 21st

century diagnostic and treatment tools so that co-infected people are

screened and treated more effectively.

Signed

[list IN FORMATION]

AIDS and

Rights Alliance for Southern Africa

Kenya

AIDS NGOs Consortium

RESULTS

Educational Fund,

USA

Treatment

Action Group, USA

CIVIL SOCIETY

CALL TO ACTION

FOR THE

“TB/HIV GLOBAL LEADERS FORUM”

We, as civil society groups, advocates, researchers,

and groups of people living with TB and HIV, in anticipation of the first

TB/HIV Global Leaders’ Forum meeting at the United Nations in New York on

9 June 2008,

·

Recalling

the UN General Assembly Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS (2006) emphasizing

the need for accelerated scale-up of collaborative activities on tuberculosis

and HIV, and the World Health Assembly Resolution (2007) requesting countries

to immediately address extensively drug-resistant TB and HIV-related TB as the

highest health priorities;

·

Noting

that HIV and TB are major constraints for socio-economic development and that investing in joint TB and

HIV/AIDS interventions will contribute positively to the achievement of the Millennium

Development Goals on health and poverty reduction by keeping people healthy and

productive;

·

Dismayed

that every twenty seconds a person dies of TB and that mortality rates have

escalated over the past ten years, despite tuberculosis being a preventable and

curable disease, and notwithstanding global commitments to halve TB mortality

by 2015;

·

Particularly

dismayed by the increasing proportion of people living with HIV who are infected

by, and dying from, TB; and worried that this has not corresponded with

sufficient scale-up of TB/HIV collaborative activities – in defiance of

Universal Access targets;

·

Concerned that

we, PLWHA, are placed at risk by poor infection control practices in healthcare

facilities, that render health care workers and people living with HIV

extremely vulnerable in the very settings where we are obliged to access and

provide healthcare;

·

Alarmed by

the devastating spread of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and extensively

drug-resistant tuberculosis, which are particularly lethal in people living

with HIV;

·

Appalled

that the standard diagnostic TB test has changed little in over a century and

routinely fails to detect TB in people living with HIV and that systems for the

diagnosis and early detection of tuberculosis in those living with HIV have not

improved substantially in the past few years, in spite of commitments at the

national and international levels to this effect;

·

Emphasizing

the critical need for governments to empower and engage communities and wider

civil society in the response to TB;

·

Concerned

by the inadequate investment of resources – both at the national and

international levels – in a comprehensive TB research agenda targeted at

improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB;

·

Recognizing

the need to examine and address our shortcomings in meeting global targets for the

prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB;

·

Confirming

that saving lives among people living with HIV and cutting mortality associated

with TB by at least 80% compared to current rates requires bold leadership and

decisive, urgent action at all levels;

URGE all UN Member States, and CALL

on Organizations of the United Nations system; intergovernmental and

nongovernmental organizations, the corporate sector, foundations, donors,

communities and the international community as a whole:

To reaffirm and evaluate their commitment to the

global fight against TB/HIV and in country statements, during remarks,

roundtables and discussions to:

· Commit the resources necessary

to ensure universal access to high quality TB/HIV care by 2015, which could

reduce TB-associated deaths among people living with HIV by 80%.

· Work toward cutting TB related

mortality among people living with HIV to 90,000 by 2010 and 50,000 by

2015—an 80% reduction over our current course.

· Commit the minimum $19 billion

needed through 2015 including $14 billion necessary to universal access

to high quality TB/HIV care and $5 billion for research required to yield new

TB tools.

· Critically evaluate the progress made in

the response to TB/HIV, identify the major challenges herein, and develop and

implement strategies to overcome these challenges;

· Expand and accelerate the coordination

between national TB and HIV programs in line with the WHO TB/HIV Collaborative

Policies to achieve Universal Access to TB services for all persons at risk for

or living with HIV/AIDS, as agreed upon by the 2006 General Assembly Political

Resolution on AIDS;

· Immediately act on the recent UNAIDS

commitment to monitor TB mortality in people living with HIV by making this an

integral part of TB/HIV indicators on the national level;

· Prioritize education and mobilization

around TB infection control and treatment in communities, health care

facilities and other institutions – particularly for people living with

HIV and other communities at high-risk for TB/HIV;

· Expressly commit resources to research

around development and promotion of better tools – including drugs,

diagnostics and a vaccine – for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of

TB that are effective for those living with HIV.

· Systematically include TB and TB/HIV in

broader development and poverty reduction strategies, and strengthen health

systems across the board to be able to effectively respond to the need; and

· Actively pursue the involvement of

communities and wider civil society in developing and implementing effective

responses to TB/HIV.

· Ensure TB and TB/HIV case detection and

cure rates are indicators within health sector reviews.

REQUESTS THE UN SECRETARY GENERAL

(through his Special Envoy to Stop TB):

· To engage governments and

civil society in resource mobilization and in ongoing monitoring, evaluation

and strengthening of the global response to TB;

· To report regularly on

progress in addressing TB/HIV to the UN General Assembly Special Session on the

HIV/AIDS Epidemic, High Level Meetings on HIV/AIDS and other important meetings

convened by the United Nations System.

· To report back on progress at

the Stop TB Partnership Partner's Forum, to be held in March 2009 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.