TUBERCULOSIS: SOUTH AFRICA: TB patients not getting HIV counselling

DURBAN, 11 June 2010 (PLUSNEWS) - Too many tuberculosis patients are not receiving counselling about the link between TB and HIV, according to new research. A study by South Africa's University of the Free State (USF), involving 600 TB patients, found that about 40 percent had never received HIV counselling, and 75 percent did not understand the relationship between HIV and TB. The findings were part of a broader study into safer sex practices among TB patients, presented by USF Associate Professor Christo Heunis at the South African TB Conference in the east-coast city of Durban. South Africa's TB epidemic, one of the world's worst according to the World Health Organization (WHO), has been fuelled by a high HIV prevalence rate of 18 percent. Globally, TB is the leading killer of people living with HIV, whose weakened immune systems make them particularly susceptible to the airborne disease. In the part of Free State Province where the USF study was conducted, the HIV/TB co-infection rate was 62 percent, which is below the national average of 73 percent. The South African government made giving TB patients better access to HIV care and services a priority in its 2007 National TB Strategic Plan, but implementation has lagged behind policy. The study noted that about half the TB patients surveyed had used a condom during their last sexual encounter, and that patients who reported using condoms were more likely to have received counselling. However, female patients who understood the relationship between HIV and TB were less likely to have used a condom than their male counterparts. Heunis attributed this discrepancy to women's fear of HIV-related stigma.