United Nations Radio

World leaders have begun meeting at UN headquarters to call for joint action to reduce tuberculosis-TB deaths among people living with HIV.

Tuberculosis is taking the lives of nearly a quarter of a million people living with HIV each year.

And, it's the number one cause of death among people living with HIV in Africa.

Three UN agencies- the World Health Organization, UNICEF and UNAIDS recently announced that three million people are now receiving life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, but TB, especially the drug-resistant forms of the disease, threatens global health that could undermine this progress.

The agencies say that without proper treatment wit anti-TB drugs, the majority of people living with HIV die within two to three months of becoming sick with TB.

World leaders have spelt out specific measures, recommended by WHO, needed to avert deaths from HIV/TB.

Among them people living with HIV must be screened regularly for TB; those who are sick with TB need effective TB treatment and those without the TB disease, should receive preventive therapy.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

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