Tuberculosis emergency in Africa

Aug 29 2005

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), African health ministers have declared a tuberculosis emergency to order to rally greater political commitment in the fight against one of the continent's top killers.

The World Health Organisation Regional Committee for Africa, which is comprised of health ministers from 46 member states, has declared tuberculosis an emergency in the African region.

The announcement came after four days of talks in Mozambique.

The WHO says the declaration is a response to an epidemic that has quadrupled the annual number of new TB cases in 18 African countries since 1990 and continues to rise across the continent, killing more than half a million people every year.

Among people who are HIV-positive, tuberculosis is a leading cause of death, and accounts for about 11 percent of AIDS deaths worldwide.

WHO experts say tuberculosis poses a major challenge in managing treatment for people with HIV.

The declaration of a tuberculosis emergency, says the WHO, should unlock more money from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations, the United States and the Global Fund, from where developing countries draw much of their cash for fighting AIDS and other diseases.

Because HIV weakens the immune system, sufferers are more susceptible to infectious diseases such as TB and pneumonia.

The WHO says that someone who is HIV-positive and infected with TB is 5-7 times more likely to develop active TB than someone infected with TB but not infected with HIV.