Satellite on TB/HIV:
Battling the Dual Epidemic through Community Action

Date: Tuesday, 21 Aug. 2007 from 6:30- 8:00 pm.

Organizers:
7 Sisters Network, Asia Pacific Network of Positive People (APN+), International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), and Treatment Action Group

Session Description
Asia and the Pacific has an estimated 5.4 million people living with HIV and has over 50% of the TB burden in the world. Despite being curable, TB has emerged as a leading cause of death amongst PLWHA. Because PLWHA are at much greater risk for TB, TB programs are important sites to identify new HIV cases, and there is a great need for collaborative TB/HIV prevention and care for people who have the coinfection. Despite the pressing need, the level of collaboration between TB and HIV programs is poor.

This satellite provided information to HIV activists about why TB is the leading cause of death amongst PWH, and TB/HIV advocacy priorities that PLWHA networks can take leadership on.

Topics and Speakers
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  1. Why is TB a major issue for PWH/A and what are the advocacy priorities? Javid Syed
  2. What are the challenges in diagnosing and treating TB amongst PWH/A? Prof. Adeeba Kamarulzaman
  3. How can TB/HIV services be provided collaboratively to save lives: Lessons from providing HIV testing to TB patients in Cambodia. Dr. Yoko Tsurugi
  4. How can HIV activists provide leadership in addressing TB/HIV. Loon Gangte

      Brief Report
      There were about 25 activists, researchers, and policy makers there and the conversation was very spirited and engaged. Besides many technical questions about how TB can be detected and treated amongst PLW, one of the issues that particularly PWA activists talked about was how to include TB into their advocacy agenda and organizational priority. PWH activists identified the need to conduct TB/HIV literacy, as the issues are still unfamiliar to most activists. Furthermore, having resources that can support this work and policy bodies that PWH can participate in to impact policy, programs, and resources were also seen as necessary to facilitate greater civil society participation in improving TB/HIV programs. There were also comments made about how there are not a lot of spaces where activists, researchers, and policy makers can discuss TB/HIV issues and work on them together.
TB/HIV Project Index TAG index

Treatment Action Group