Dual HIV-TB epidemic threatening Africa

HIV and TB have collided virtually un-noticed to create a co-epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report.

The study, published in the Forum for Collaborative HIV research, claims that there are ever-growing numbers of people infected with both HIV/AIDS and TB and that the mortality rate for the two diseases is up to five times higher than for TB alone.

According to the research, one third of the 40 million people worldwide infected with HIV are now affected by HIV-TB and of those 90 per cent will die within months of contracting TB.

Veronica Miller, co-author of the report, said: ""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,"

"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," she added.

In one community in the western Cape, South Africa, the BBC reported that a child is 100 times more likely to catch TB than anyone living in the developed world.

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