Medindia LOGIN REGISTER
Medindia

HIV and TB, a Dreadful Combination

by Medindia Content Team on Jun 23 2006 12:33 PM

An alarming 93% increase in the death rates, from the combination of HIV and tuberculosis were evidenced from 2003, seen predominantly in women’s of South Africa.

Western Cape tops for the highest TB rate in Africa. Nearly 70,000 deaths in 2003 made TB is the biggest cause of mortality in South Africa.

Thabo Mbeki, the President provoked that people are to be warned about the dreaded conditions behind it which put in action after the release of statistics by Statistics SA.

Concerns from all came after the Stats SA release regarding the emergency steps taken to eradicate its spread, said TAC's Zackie Achmat.

As there was a decline in the accidental deaths, HIV epidemic’s not making for its drop, said Achmat in a workshop.

In Cape Town about 2/3rd of TB patients were HIV-positive, thus showing a steady association between these two diseases - the Cape Argus reports.

An increased TB infection rate among people, which near 216 numbers were evidenced when comparing Western Cape’s with the national rate.

Advertisement
Inactive immune system as in AIDS predisposes people to be infected with TB than other diseases. A statistical report said children under 4 years are unfortunately the higher to be died in the year 2004 and also women in the age group between 30 – 34 tops in adult death rate.

Achmat said after analsing the Stats SA report that a gender partiality have also been noticed by which only 60 per cent men were recorded compared to 93 per cent women over the same year.

Advertisement


Advertisement