Civil society calls for Universal Access to TB/HIV Care

Photo by futureshapeHealth & Development Networks (HDN) and AIDS Care Watch (ACW) campaign

Signs on the civil society Letter to the Governments of the World who will convene for the

First HIV TB Global Leaders’ Forum,

New York (9 June 2008)

So far 84 organizations from 39 countries have joined this civil society letter calling for universal access to TB/HIV care to stop the biggest killer of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world... please join by sending your ORGANIZATIONAL endorsement to:

Matt Kavanagh at mkavanagh@results.org by WEDNESDAY JUNE 4th.

-------------

Open Letter to the Governments of the World:

As leaders gather in New York for the “Global Leaders Forum on TB/HIV,”

we write as civil society groups, advocates, researchers, and groups of people living with TB and HIV from around the world to demand concrete action on TB and HIV.

We express our collective outrage that TB, despite being curable for over a half century, continues to be the leading cause of death of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWH/A). We call on governments and multilateral institutions to take bold and concrete action—and commit ourselves to the same—to ensure that every person in need receives high quality TB and HIV treatment, prevention, diagnostics and care.

Enclosed here you will find a call to action from Civil Society—as we add our voices to the leaders gathered in New York June 9^th . In 2006, the UN Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS called for “accelerated scale-up of collaborative activities on tuberculosis and HIV, in line with the Global Plan to Stop TB.” Since then some nations have seen major scale-up, but the vast majority of people with TB/HIV co-infection still do not have access to coordinated services.

The world must treat TB/HIV as the crisis that it is. In Sub-Saharan Africa currently up to 50% of people living with HIV will develop TB—they are 30 times more likely to develop active TB. Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) TB, including Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) TB, is poised to become the next pandemic—and already has frighteningly high mortality amongst people with HIV. An effective response must be mobilized immediately.

*We understand that, if universal access to existing high quality TB/HIV care and services were available by 2015, we could likely cut the current mortality rates by 80%--saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people each year. *As a matter of urgency, we call upon governments of the world to move beyond declarations and provide the /plans/, the /resources/, and the /effective programs/ to stop these intertwined pandemics.

*We demand that governments /immediately and publicly announce:/*

1. *UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO HIGH QUALITY TB/HIV CARE BY 2015: *By 2015,

in high burden areas, every person living with HIV should be

screened for TB, every person with TB should be offered HIV

counseling and testing, and treatment, prevention, and care must

be universally available and coordinated for both diseases. This

must be coordinated with a scale up to Universal Access on HIV by

2010.**

2. *FULL FUNDING: *Donor and high burden country governments must

announce specifically how they will fund the /at least/ *$19

billion through 2015* needed to ensure existing high quality

TB/HIV care is available to all and that new tools are on the way.**

3. *REDUCE TB/HIV MORTALITY:* Country plans should monitor progress

to reduce mortality to no more than 90,000 by 2010 and 50,000 by

2015—an 80% reduction over our current course.

4. *21^st CENTURY DIAGNOSTICS & TREATMENT: *A tangible global

commitment must be announced to developing and ensuring access to

21^st century diagnostic and treatment tools so that co-infected

people are screened and treated more effectively.

Signed

[LIST IN FORMATION: please email ORGANIZATIONAL sign-ons to Matt

Kavanagh: mkavanagh@results.org]

ActionAid International

African Services Committee, USA

AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa AIDS Care Watch Campaign, International AIDS Law Project, South Africa The AIDS Institute, USA *Alliance Burundais Contre le SIDA, Burundi* Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation Asia Pacific Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (APN+) Association African Solidarit, Burkina Faso British Columbia Lung Association, Canada Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, USA Burundian Human Rights League Iteka Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition Child Foundation of India Christian Aid, United Kingdom Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS in Malawi Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic (CREATE), USA Delhi Network of Positive people (DNP+),India Estonian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), Belgium Franeois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, USA Fundacien Huellas, Ecuador Fundacien Huesped, Argentina Global Action for Children, USA Global AIDS Alliance, USA Global Health Advocates, India Global Harmony, India Goodwill Aid, Ghana Grupo Portugues de Activistas sobre Tratamentos de VIH/SIDA (GAT), Portugal Guyana Rainbow Association Harvard Medical School, Department of Social Medicine, USA HealthGAP (Global Access Project), USA Health & Development Networks (HDN), Thailand HIV/AIDS Task Force, Africa Japan Forum INSA India Initiatives for Research and Training for Development, Cameroon Initiative for Community Development, Nigeria Intimate Friends International, Cameroon Jamaican Network of Seropositives Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium Knowledge Ecology International, USA/Switzerland KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, The Netherlands

Lanka+, Sri Lanka

LHL - Norwegian Heart and Lung Patient Organization Living Positively, Canada Malaysian AIDS Council Media Network on HIV/AIDS and Development (MedNAD), Nigeria Migrant Clinicians Network, USA Mozambique AIDS Treatment Access Movement

MSM: No Political Agenda (MSMNPA), Trinidad & Tobago National Group of TB People, Pakistan Network of Zimbabwean Positive Women (NZPW+) New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute, USA Observatoire des Droits des Personnes Infectes et/ou Affectes par le VIH/SIDA (odpia+), Burundi Partners In Health, USA PATH, Cambodia Participatory Development Action Program (PDAP), Bangladesh Pinoy Plus Association—Association of People Livng with HIV/AIDS, Philippines Positive Life Association of Nigeria (PLAN), Nigeria Pro-Health Initiative, Nigeria Project RING, Japan AIDS and Society Association Puerto Rico Community Network on Clinical Research on AIDS Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC) Reseau Nigerien de Personnes Vivant Avec le VIH/SIDA, Nigeria RESULTS Educational Fund, USA RESULTS Canada RESULTS Japan RESULTS UK Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service Spiritia Foundation, Indonesia Stop HIV/AIDS in India Initiative (SHAII) STOP TB Italy St. Mary Cottage Hospital, Kenya Students Against Global AIDS (SAGA), Canada Student Global AIDS Campaign, USA Student Global AIDS Campaign, Cameroon Task Force of Empowerment for Migrant Workers and Spouses, Malaysia Target Tuberculosis, United Kingdom Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign, Zambia Treatment Action Movement (TAM), Nigeria Treatment Action Group, USA United Methodist Church, General Board of Church & Society, USA World AIDS Campaign, The Netherlands & South Africa Zambia Association for the Prevention of HIV and Tuberculosis (ZAPHIT)

Bobby Ramakant-CNS