By: Mary Baker
Today is World AIDS Day, a day to remember the global AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV and an opportunity to take action in the fight against this deadly disease for the 40 million men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS today.
AIDS has killed more than 15 million people in Africa, more than the highest estimates of the Rwandan genocide (800,000), Khmer rouge regime (about 2 million), Holocaust (11 million) and Iraq war (about 38,000) combined. The disease increasingly affects young people. An estimated 11.8 million young people
live with HIV/AIDS – 7.3 million young women and 4.5 million young men. A ghastly gender disparity caused by, in contrast to stereotypical assumptions, several complex factors including education, health,
socioeconomics, culture, law and governance. Their husbands primarily transmit aIDS to women and children contract HIV through their mothers during their pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding.
AIDS is not a simple infectious disease, but a disease syndrome characterized by a group of illnesses.
Tuberculosis is the leading killer once a person contracts HIV/AIDS, with one-third of the approximate
40 million people co-infected with TB (WHO 2005).
Failing immune systems quicken the pace with which TB attacks the body, and left untreated, a person with AIDS and active TB will die in a few weeks.
Teatment is available, which costs as little as $16 per person. A person with AIDS who gets sick with TB can be successfully treated with drugs even if the patient is not yet receiving anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS. Lives can be extended for years, but only half the people co-infected with AIDS and TB receive treatment. To stem the tide of deaths from AIDS and to prolong the lives of people with HIV, a dedicated effort to combat TB is crucial, given the relative ease of transmitting the airborne contagion.
Nevertheless, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) spends a miniscule portion of its budget fighting TB and TB-HIV co-infection. The World Bank has a $1.2 billion program to fight AIDS in Africa and only spends about $3.5 million per year fighting the leading killer of people with AIDS in
Africa: TB. The vast sums invested in the fight against AIDS fail in their impact when TB takes the life of somebody with AIDS. This under-funding is a sign of neglect and a missed opportunity.
TB will continue to cut short the lives of millions, destroying communities and devastating economies, without greater coordination to fight TB and greater investment in TB and TB-HIV initiatives from PEPFAR and the World Bank. Inadequate investment in basic TB control is rapidly leading to a dramatic rise in cases of multi-drug-resistant TB and the more lethal XDR-TB. This past summer, a virtually incurable strain of XDR-TB killed 52 of 53 patients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, the majority of who were in the advanced stages of AIDS. If we hope to extend the lifetimes of people living with AIDS, investments must be made now to provide access to effective TB treatment and to strengthen surveillance and diagnosis programs of TB.
PEPFAR has had some successes in coordinating TB and HIV services, making gains against both diseases. But this success has not been replicated in a major way. The World Bank played a major role in helping India and China fight TB, now they must turn their attention to Africa, where TB brings death to nearly 600,000 people annually.
By devoting increased resources to the major killer of people living with AIDS, they can fight AIDS by fighting TB. Our members of Congress should call on the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, who heads up PEPFAR, and the World Bank to immediately increase resources for basic TB control in Africa. Doing so will prevent the emergence of XDR-TB and also help save the lives of people living with AIDS.
On this year’s World AIDS Day, caring citizens must hold their governments accountable for the promises made to stop AIDS and its accomplices, promises our elected officials have failed to keep. We cannot, in good conscience, stand by idly as millions of people die to the merciless killers known as AIDS and TB.
Mary Baker is a BYU student of international development from Jonesborough, Tenn. She is also a member of RESULTS – a grassroots activist group working to help end poverty.
