"SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE INVESTMENT IN BASIC TB CONTROL PROGRAMMES AS THE KEY TO PREVENTING THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF DRUG-RESISTANT TB"

A group of HIV and TB activists who met last week near New York City are issuing the following Demand for Action on TB and HIV.

Demand for Action on TB and HIV

We, the undersigned, are advocates, researchers, and people living with TB and HIV from all regions of the world gathered to mobilize an urgent response to the joint epidemics of TB and HIV. We collectively express our outrage at the epidemic of XDR-TB, generated by the continued failure of governments and international actors to deliver basic quality TB and HIV services.

The counter-productive separation of TB and HIV programming is undermining our ability to address these diseases and must come to an end. The global statistics are unacceptable - 40 million people living with HIV, two billion infected with tuberculosis, and at least 13 million co-infected with TB and HIV.[1] Yet, standard TB is curable even in people living with HIV.

We must take immediate action to guarantee universal access to integrated TB and HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. We demand that national governments, global health and development agencies, donors, and civil society:

1. Make immediate and visible political commitments to halt the spread of XDRTB;

2. Provide the US$650 million urgently needed in 2007 for an immediate response to control MDR-TB (multi-drug resistant TB) and XDR-TB and an additional $138 million in 2007 to accelerate the development of appropriate drugs and diagnostics;

3. Significantly increase investment in basic TB control programs as the key to preventing the further development and spread of drug-resistant TB and dedicate considerable additional resources to fill the long-term global financing gaps for TB and HIV;

4. Deliver TB and HIV services in the context of fully functioning primary health care systems to ensure cases are detected, prevention is available and treatment accessible and sustained;

5. Invest substantial additional resources in accelerated research and development on new diagnostic, prevention and treatment technologies for TB and HIV; and

6. Reach the most vulnerable populations with TB and HIV services and redress the social injustices that fuel these dual epidemics and XDR-TB. People living with TB and HIV have a crucial role to play as advocates, providers, and partners in designing effective responses to these preventable and treatable diseases.

Glen Cove, New York, 7 March 2007

Reproduction welcomed provided HDN is informed of usage and source is cited as follows: SEA-AIDS eForum 2007: sea-aids@eforums.healthdev.org

For details of how to access discussion archives: http://www.healthdev.org/eforums/sea-aids