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If he could choose between having HIV or TB, he would choose to have HIV, said Professor Francois Venter from the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute in a controversial talk at the recent 42ndUnion World Conference on Lung Health held in Lille, France.
Despite high death rates in TB patients, they do not enjoy the same level of health services and treatment as HIV patients.
Venter highlighted the following areas in which TB is lagging behind HIV:
- Scientific advances: Some important scientific advances and breakthroughs in HIV research, such as the microbiocide gel and preventative therapies, have taken place in recent years. But in TB, there has been little progress in the last few decades.
- Diagnostic tools: HIV has highly accurate diagnostics that deliver same-day results, and can be found in even the poorest areas in the country. But until recently, it took between two and six weeks for a South African patient to get the outcome of a TB test. Earlier this year the GeneXpert TB diagnostic machine, that provides results within two hours, was released, but it is still being rolled out in the South African health system.
- Quality and availability of drugs: New drugs for treating HIV are brought to market rapidly. But according to Venter: “In TB [the latest drugs] have been wandering around for 10 years, but it’s still not generally available.” Although there are robust second-line treatment for drug resistance in HIV, Venter argues that second-line HIV therapy is a lot less toxic than first-line TB therapy. For MDR and XDR-TB treatment, the drug toxicity is so high that patients have to be hospitalised to manage the side effects.
- Treatment regimes: InHIV programmes, patients receive individualised counselling that informs them of the implications of their disease and treatment regimes. Patients are issued medication which they take daily on their own. TB programmes make use of the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short Course) treatment regime, where patients have to take their medicine in front of an allocated person every day. According to Venter, DOTS is a patriarchal and time-consuming regime that has caused some patients to lose their jobs.
- Activism: Venter commented that HIV has dedicated activists who are not scared to fight for the rights of patients, but that there is very little activism for TB patients.
Venter also added other areas in which TB lagged behind HIV which included treatment outcome, monitoring and infection control.
(Wilma Stassen, Health24, October 2011)
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Your Comments
HIV vs TB
TB was the fashionable disease a hundred or more years ago - and it was deemed fatal then with a very poor recovery rate. HIV is the great and awful epidemic of our time, but TB has not gone away. Obviously I would rather have neither, but treatment options, confidentiality and medical aid coverage are far better for HIV than TB. And no-one puts you in quarantine.
HIV/TB
This highlights the problems faced in tackling TB. Old tools and a lack of political continue to block progress. A choice between a lifelong illness with no known cure or a curable disease is an easy one, but Prof Venter makes a very valid point that treatment for HIV is very advanced compared to TB.
The problem has been around for a long time, but we still have not found a solution. Is it not about time we did? Talk of zero deaths from TB has started, but how do we make it happen?
HIV/TB
This certainly demonstrates the progress that has been made in tackling HIV, but as the leading cause of death for those living with HIV, TB is undermining this good work. Until we start investing in TB, people will continue to suffer and die from this treatable, curable disease
HIV/TB
Having just completed a nine month treatment program for TB I can vouch for the poor service patients receive. I completely understand why so many people die of the disease each year. It took major surgery and another three months of excrutiating pain before a diagnosis was made. I now have a 15cm scar on my abdomen, I look like I've been butchered. The jury is still out on the negative effects of the medication on my liver and kidneys. Still, I am TB free now, with HIV, its forever
HIV or TB
My doctor at Mayo said he wiil choose HIV. it was shocking but his reasons made sense. pople think HIV is DEATH SENTENCE. you can controll HIV with medication and taking test twice a year for CD4 counts while with TB, Hgh blood, Low blood pressures or diabetic its very risky. your sugar level can go up and not be able to control it results STROKE. High blood pressure you can pop a vein. do reserch on HIV then copare your notes to other chronic diseases.
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