UNAIDS calls for bold action to end TB, AIDS

The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) yesterday called on all partners to take “unprecedented and bold action” to advance efforts to end tuberculosis (TB) and AIDS by 2023.

UNAIDS said that TB remains the top infectious killer worldwide, claiming more than 4,500 lives a day. It is also the leading cause of death among people infected with HIV, accounting for one in three AIDS-related deaths.

In 2016, some 374,000 of the 1.7 million people who died from TB had HIV. UNAIDS said a person with HIV is 21 percent more prone to develop the lung disease.

“The world has the resources to end the interlinked epidemics of tuberculosis and HIV, but political commitment and country action are lacking,” said Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS executive director.

“Political, religious and civil society leaders need to step up to guarantee everyone the right to breathe, to live free from tuberculosis and AIDS,” he added.

According to UNAIDS, TB is preventable and curable but “persistent challenges” are getting in the way of eliminating it.

Among the challenges are unequal access to services with the most marginalized people still out of reach; the need to access education, housing and basic services to prevent, diagnose and treat TB and HIV through local healthcare services and community health-care workers; the need to strengthen health systems; and the need to mobilize resources in programming, research and development.

Many of these challenges are also faced by the HIV response and can be effectively addressed if programs are integrated.

UNAIDS said progress has been made to reduce deaths from TB among HIV patients by 37 percent between 2005 and 2016 because “prevention, testing and treatment have improved and increased” but “there is still much more work to be done.”

To address the challenges and to scale up the response to TB and HIV, UNAIDS has lined up important actions that can be taken.

These include giving new impetus to the response by impelling political, religious and civil society leaders to champion the universal right to live free from TB and HIV; empowering communities to demand their right to health; and by ensuring rights- promoting and non-discriminatory service delivery for all.

Tuberculosis in Philippine jails

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) underscored the need to address TB in prisons, saying that the Philippines’ “overcrowded places of detention are particularly exposed to the disease.”

Citing a project it piloted with the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) in 2013 to improve TB control strategies, ICRC said it has screened more than 50,000 detainees for TB.

Of this figure, 2,800 were found to have active TB, including 19 detainees with drug-resistant TB. They were all enrolled for treatment.

ICRC said more than 1,700 patients were cured, hence TB mortality rate dropped from 157 to 112 per 100,000.

The prison “achieved the national and World Health Organization’s target of 90 percent success rate in treatment of drug-susceptible TB cases,” ICRC said.

The pilot project was intended to serve as a model for other detention facilities to enhance their TB program implementation. On March 20, the project was officially handed over by the ICRC to BuCor for continuance.

According to Dr. Maria Cecilia Villanueva of the BuCor’s TB Treatment Unit, the agency is committed to continue the project to effectively address TB among inmates.

“There are areas that require strong focus, such as screening upon entry in the Reception and Diagnostic Center, as it would allow us to efficiently diagnose inmates and give them the treatment they need at the earliest possible time. We now have the equipment and skills to do that,” she said.

Under the project, the TB staff of the National Bilibid Prison work in a renovated and functional treatment unit with fully equipped offices, clinic, pharmacy, TB laboratory, and a 200-bed-capacity isolation dormitory with patients’ access to open air and gardening.

Kester Maniaul, manager of ICRC TB in Detention Program, said collaboration among the authorities and external partners is the best way forward in order for the Philippines to be TB-free by 2035.