TB activism at Vienna 2010

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

This is an invitation to everyone attending the IAC 2010 in Vienna.Please join

activists on the

Coffin March - No More People Living with HIV dying

from Tuberculosis July 20 evening

Starting at IAS and ending in the plenary session

held with Dr Sampaio,UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Stop TB

March with activists holding a coffin and coughing into their Stop TB

handkerchiefs.

The Challenge before us

At least one-third of the estimated 33 million people living with HIV worldwide

are infected with the TB bacteria (latent TB infection - not active disease).

Of the 9.3 million new TB cases in 2007, 1.4 million were also living with HIV.

TB is a leading killer of people with HIV in many parts of the world: 456 000

HIV-positive TB patients diedin 2007.

People living with HIV are 20-30 times more likely to develop TB than those

without HIV.

An estimated 511 000 new cases of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) [resistance

to key first-line anti-TB drugs] occurred in 2007, about 10% of whom had

extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) [resistance to almostall second-line

anti-TB drugs].

People living with HIV are highly vulnerable to MDR and XDR-TB and have a

greatly increased mortality ratefrom TB.

Adequate measures to control TB infection are still not implemented in most

settings providing care and treatment of HIV patients.

(Source: Global tuberculosis control: epidemiology, planning, financing. WHO

report 2009. Geneva, World Health

Organization, 2009 (WHO/HTM/TB/2009.411).Global TB Report 2009)

We cannot ignore TB anymore. We need to bring some of the activism and energy of

addressing HIV, into our TB control measures.

So if you are attending or know of anyone who will be attending the IAC at

Vienna please Join in this.

Please do get back if you have any further queries.

Thank you.

Blessi Kumar

TB/HIV Activist

Public Health Consultant

New Delhi

e-mail: <kumarblessi@...>