The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Rose Athumani
18 March 2008
Kenya and Rwanda have the highest HIV testing rates in Africa for the tuberculosis (TB) care programmes, a global report has indicated.
The two East African countries share the record with Malawi as the foremost African countries progressing well in the fight against an upsurge of TB.
They were the positive examples from the continent cited in the Global Tuberculosis Control report for 2008 released by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Rwanda recorded the highest rate of 76 per cent, Malawi 64 per cent while Kenya had 60 per cent to show for domestic strides in the fight against TB.
WHO said there was a general slow down in efforts to control the TB epidemic in several countries. It cautioned that, if not checked, the trend would slow down even further.
The report released last Monday showed that there was a slowdown in diagnosing people with TB in 2006.
Compared to between 2001 and 2005 when TB cases were being detected at an average rate of six per cent, in 2005 and 2006 the rate decreased by half to three per cent.
The report gave the reason for the slowdown as national programmes that were making rapid strides during the last five years. These had been unable to continue at the same pace in 2006, it said.
The report's findings also showed that the response to the increasing rate of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) had been inadequate. As a result it has thrown further doubts on reversing the progress on TB.
It also showed that because of the limited laboratory and treatment capacity of most countries, the countries will provide treatment only to an estimated ten per cent of people with MDR-TB worldwide this year.
The second threat to the on-going progress is the combination of TB and HIV fuelling TB epidemics in many parts of the world, especially in Africa.
However, the report showed that although TB/HIV remained a challenge, some countries were making positive strides. About 700, 000 TB patients were tested for HIV in 2006, up from 22, 000 in 2002.
This figure is, however, still far below the target of 1.6 million set by Global Plan to stop TB 2006-2015.
This is the 12th annual WHO report on global TB control. It is based on data given to WHO by 202 countries and territories.
There were 9.2 million new cases of TB in 2006. According to the report, they include 700,000 cases among people living with HIV, and 500 000 cases of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
About 1.5 million people died from TB in 2006. In addition, 200,000 other people with HIV died from HIV-associated TB.
"The report tells us that we are far from providing universal access to high-quality prevention, diagnostic, treatment and care services for HIV and TB," the UNAIDS executive director, Dr Peter Piot, said.
He added: "Clear progress has been made but we must all do more to make a joint approach of reducing TB deaths among people with HIV."
The WHO director general, Dr Margaret Chan, said for progress to be made, public programmes must be strengthened.
The aim is to tap the potential of other service providers like private care providers, non-governmental, faith-based and community organizations.
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