The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : HIV adds fuel to tuberculosis fire worldwide, say experts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 07, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

HIV adds fuel to tuberculosis fire worldwide, say experts

Special Correspondent

"Being a socially transmitted disease, entire populations are turning vulnerable"

MAKING A POINT: Premila Samuel, pathologist (left), interacting with K. Venugopal, pulmonologist, and P.K. Thomas, chest specialist (right), at a symposium in the city on Sunday. — Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is emerging as the most potent force driving the tuberculosis epidemic worldwide, doctors said at a symposium here on Sunday.

The decimation of the immune system by the virus made the body more susceptible to tuberculosis.

`Tuberculosis Update 2006' was organised by pharmaceutical firm Lupin.

Alarming scenario

Being a socially transmitted disease, entire populations were turning vulnerable, C.N. Deivanayagam, president, Health India Foundation, said. The global health community had not anticipated the "astounding interaction between TB and HIV." The 1993 WHO declaration, describing TB as a "global health emergency," was a turning point.

The "Great White Plague" had returned to haunt not just the developing nations like sub-Saharan Africa and India but also Eastern Europe, the United States and Russia, he said.

Dr. Deivanayagam said around 200 million people were afflicted with the disease. In London alone, the incidence had gone up by 80 per cent in the past 10 years. The corresponding numbers for India and China were 2 million and 1.5 million.

Triple trouble

Together, TB, HIV and malnutrition were emerging as "triple trouble" globally. In India, after Mumbai, Tamil Nadu was emerging as the "headquarters" of the first two. Recognising the seriousness of the problem, the Centre had announced free supply of anti-retroviral drugs in six most affected States. The integration of allopathy with Siddha at the Tambaram sanatorium was also yielding good results, Dr. Deivanayagam said.

Patients' non-compliance with the therapy was a reason for high incidence of TB, said P.K. Thomas, one of the co-ordinators of the conference. Though treatment costs had been slashed, lack of awareness was a major reason for the high prevalence, especially in Tamil Nadu.

Sessions on laboratory diagnosis, radiology, clinical presentation, treatment and drug toxicity, pleural disease and extra-pulmonary tuberculosis were held as part of the symposium.

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