Of the 33.2 million people living with HIV a third are estimated to also be infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the most common causes of illness and death among people living with HIV, despite being largely curable and preventable. There were an estimated 1.4 million new HIV positive TB patients in 2008 and more than half a million people died of HIV-associated TB. Despite this in 2008, only 48,000 of the 33.3 million people living with HIV were given TB preventive therapy. Globally it was only 22% of new TB patients who knew their HIV status out of which more than a quarter were HIV positive. Of this identified HIV positive TB patients only a third were put on ART. These facts clearly show that there is a long way to streamline TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment as essential care.

This session will raise awareness of the global efforts around TB/HIV issues, offer innovative solutions and call on conference participants to catalyze implementation in their countries and regions particularly to scale up TB prevention including the provision of ART for TB patients living with HIV. It will also highlight the importance of political commitment at all levels and increasing resources, including to meet research needs around TB/HIV.