- Date
- November 2006
This series of reports, by the Open Society Public Health Watch project, highlights how TB, HIV/AIDS, and poverty combine to cause almost two million preventable deaths every year.
Civil Society Perspectives on TB Policy in Bangladesh, Brazil, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Thailand reveals that community participation and public awareness—which have lent vital support to the fight against HIV/AIDS—have been excluded from efforts to control the spread of TB. Released to coincide with the 2006 World Conference on Lung Health in Paris, the series shows that health experts and policymakers alone cannot effectively combat TB.
The reports call for public engagement to heighten awareness and mobilize research, prevention efforts, care, and funding. As TB is a major killer, government officials and civil society must join efforts to increase awareness of TB symptoms, available treatment, and the high risk of coinfection with HIV/AIDS.
Due to a lack of information, stigma, and the prohibitive cost of care, many patients do not seek or fail to complete TB treatment, the reports find. And when patients default on treatment, they run the risk of developing drug-resistant forms of TB that can be passed to others, threatening to transform a curable disease into an untreatable plague.
A compilation volume of the five reports is available for download. Please contact Emily Bell (ebell@sorosny.org) for more information on this series.