PRESS CONFERENCE ON FIRST HIV-TUBERCULOSIS GLOBAL LEADERS’ FORUM

A few hours before the opening of the HIV-TB Global Leaders’ Forum at United Nations Headquarters this afternoon, Jorge Sampaio, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Stop Tuberculosis, expressed hope that the gathering of global leaders would result in a worldwide call to action to simultaneously address and treat HIV and tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis was a curable disease, but it claimed the lives of 4,500 people every day, and another estimated 500,000 new infections were reported annually, Mr. Sampaio said during a Headquarters press conference to launch the Forum.  What was more, almost 250,000 people living with HIV died each day from tuberculosis.

“If in fact there is to be no real progress on HIV and TB, we will be in a very difficult circumstance in the future,” he said, stressing that the killer epidemics, which largely targeted working-age adults, were a major constraint on economic development in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions.  “If we manage to test those who have HIV for TB, then we help by saving a lot of lives.”

The HIV-TB Global Leaders’ Forum -– the first ever such gathering of Heads of Government, senior political and United Nations leaders, and representatives of civil society and the private sector –- was organized by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Stop TB Partnership, the World Bank, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.  It aimed to draw global attention to the much neglected link between tuberculosis and HIV, Mr. Sampaio said.

Tuberculosis often attacked the weak immune systems of people living with HIV, undermining investment in life-saving HIV treatment programmes, he said.  New multi-drug resistant strains of tuberculosis were also growing in the developing world, requiring longer, more costly treatment with the risk of greater side effects.  But no new vaccines, drugs or diagnostics to treat tuberculosis had been produced in 37 years.  More research, financing, partnerships and a “two diseases, one response” approach were essential.

Winstone Zulu, an activist for HIV and tuberculosis from Zambia, shed light on the hopelessness of the millions of people living with HIV and dying of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.  For many of them, including members of his own family, tuberculosis had compounded the problem.  Mr. Zulu had contracted tuberculosis in 1996 and had since received treatment.  But, by 2003, his four HIV-positive brothers, most of whom had no access to tuberculosis drugs, had died of the disease.

Moreover, many tuberculosis deaths in Africa went unnoticed, as people dying of the disease were often counted in national statistics as mortalities due to AIDS, Mr. Zulu said.  He called for better and more widely available treatment for tuberculosis, noting that ordinary life-saving therapies cost just $20 on average.  “While we’re looking for a cure for AIDS, we can’t afford to allow people with HIV and TB to continue dying.”

Responding to a reporter’s question about new programmes he was proposing, Mr. Sampaio said his role was that of an activist to raise awareness of the importance of fighting tuberculosis and the need to scale up financing and research for testing and treatment.

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