Swaziland: Dual HIV and Tuberculosis Epidemic Demands Urgent Action
Mbabane,Swaziland/Switzerland, November 18, 2010 - The dual epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV is devastating Swaziland, cutting life expectancy
there from 60 years to just 31, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today in a new report.
The small kingdom of just over one million people is at the epicenter of a co-epidemic affecting the whole of southern Africa. The
report, " Fighting a
Dual Epidemic: Treating TB in a High HIV Prevalence Setting in Rural Swaziland ," draws upon MSF's experience since 2007 in the Shiselweni region and outlines the urgent
action that must be taken in response to this major health emergency.
"Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence in the world among adults," said Aymeric Péguillan, MSF's head of mission in
Swaziland. "Disturbingly, more than 80 percent of TB patients are also co-infected with HIV. Life expectancy has halved within two decades, plummeting from
60 to just 31 years. People are dying in large numbers and tuberculosis is currently the main cause of mortality among adults. As a result, many children are being
made orphans and the adult workforce is declining."
Swaziland also has an alarmingly high prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB, which accounts for 7.7 percent of all new TB cases, as revealed by the
joint MSF/National TB Programme 2009-10 Drug Susceptibility Survey. Swaziland is amongst the group of countries with the highest prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB.
Tackling the crisis is hindered by an acute shortage of local health staff, inadequate diagnostic facilities, and by patients failing to complete their treatment, often
because of the prohibitive cost of making long and frequent journeys to distant health facilities.
Since November 2007, MSF and the Ministry of Health of Swaziland have followed a decentralized, integrated and patient-centered approach to fight the co-epidemic in
Shiselweni, the country's poorest and most remote region. As a result, innovative 'one-stop services' for HIV and TB care are available today in 21 health
facilities. The number of people tested for HIV each month has also more than tripled in 18 months, reaching 1,617 in June 2010.
"Decentralizing integrated HIV and TB services all the way down to rural clinics and communities has dramatically improved patients' access to care, and significantly
reduced the number of patients defaulting from treatment," said Péguillan. "Until 2008, the management of the TB epidemic was extremely centralized. Patients
had to travel to the national TB center for treatment, or wait for the sporadic visits of a medical team. Today in Shiselweni, patients can access HIV and TB services
closer to their homes."
Other innovative approaches have been implemented with great success, in particular task-shifting. Given the dire shortage of health professionals,
delegating responsibilities to lower cadres of workers-from doctors to nurses, and from nurses to lay community workers-has proved to be an effective model of care delivery.
The challenge now is to build on these successes. MSF's report highlights measures that urgently need to be expanded nationwide, including improved infection
control measures and the implementation of new diagnostic techniques. MSF strongly advocates for an expansion of task-shifting amongst health workers to manage the growing
number of people with HIV in need of treatment, which is set to increase in line with the latest WHO guidelines, which recommend that patients begin treatment
earlier. "Introducing these measures is vital. The scale of the co-epidemic in Swaziland demands urgent political commitment translated into immediate
action," said Péguillan. "We can save thousands of lives if we act now."
In 2006, the then Prime Minister of Swaziland made an urgent request for external help to fight the HIV and TB crisis sweeping the country. Since late-2007,
MSF, together with Swaziland's Ministry of Health, has been providing HIV and TB care to patients in Shiselweni. By the end of June 2010, out of almost 20,000 HIV-positive
people in need of treatment in Shiselweni region, close to 11,000 patients were on antiretroviral treatment, including 2,845 managed at clinic level. An average of 2,450
patients have been initiated on anti-TB treatment annually since January 2008. A total of 140 patients have been initiated on treatment for drug-resistant TB treatment
since January 2008.
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Special Report
Fighting a Dual Epidemic
Treating TB in a High HIV Prevalence Setting in Rural Swaziland
Download Report [606 KB]
Source:
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES
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