The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
Failure by donors and implementing countries to invest more in tuberculosis and HIV may thwart efforts to end both epidemics, resulting in thousands of otherwise preventable deaths.
Tuberculosis is currently the leading cause of deaths among people living with HIV even though it is preventable and treatable. According to a report titled From Rhetoric to Reality, launched by Global Health Partnership during the 20th International Aids Conference in Melbourne, Australia, 320,000 people living with HIV died of the airborne disease in 2012.
This, TB advocates have said, could have been prevented had donors invested more to address the dual infection.
In addition, they have called for the integration of HIV and TB clinics, saying it is an easy and affordable way of addressing TB and HIV simultaneously. Senior TB advocate Evaline Kibuchi says this integration would ensure that all people tested for HIV are also screened for TB.
“It is very sad that there are patients who test positive for HIV and even start on anti-retroviral treatment only to find themselves in hospitals again with severe TB,” she notes.
This, she adds, is not only expensive for the patient because they have to pay for their screening and transport to the clinics, but also time consuming.
Rudia Nalembedze, 48, lives with HIV and narrates how she gave up her efforts to get screening for TB because of long queues and the distance between the HIV and TB clinics.
“When I was referred to the TB clinic for screening at the HIV clinic, I thought it was next door only to have to board a cab to take me more than 3km away where I found a long queue,” she says.
She went back the next day but found the same situation.
“I got tired and frustrated and gave up only to be confined to a hospital bed for three weeks with acute TB a month later.”
Kibuchi says there is need to have facilities available for people living with HIV to also screen for TB at no cost to ensure access to proper TB testing, treatment and care.
From Rhetoric to Reality, at whose launching Kibuchi was a key speaker, recommends that when services are not located in the same clinic, incentives should be provided for affected communities to complete referrals.
People living with HIV in low income countries have lamented that diagnostic tests such as X-rays are too expensive for them hence their reluctance to have them voluntarily.
The report called for national TB programmes to reduce out-of-pocket costs for such tests to enable people living with HIV go for screening without duress.
Unfortunately, in low and middle income countries, most facilities with kits used to test TB often fail to diagnose TB in people living with HIV, which demands more money from the patient should a more intensified test be required from a better-equipped facility.
join