EAST LONDON, 1 December 2011 (PlusNews) - South African government has chosen World AIDS Day 2011 to launch its new national strategic plan that, for the first time, will guide not only the national fight against HIV but also tuberculosis (TB) until 2016. The document contains several major policy changes, including the immediate provision of lifelong antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to all HIV-positive mothers and TB patients, as well as a focus on positive prevention.

Uyo — Nigeria is among the 22 countries burdened with tuberculosis in the world, and the second highest in Africa, with an estimated 250,000 new cases occurring annually, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu has said. Chukwu disclosed this yesterday at the 2011 annual review meeting of the National TB and Leprosy Control programme held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

1 December 2011 - Geneva - Today's World AIDS Day is a bittersweet occasion. In the past year, we have seen incredible progress in the fight against AIDS. We have also seen great results where those fighting against TB - a disease which still accounts for one in four AIDS deaths - do so alongside our partners in HIV.

A World Health Organization (WHO) report revealed that significant progress toward eradicating tuberculosis (TB) globally was achieved in the last two decades. TB is a common and often deadly infectious disease spread through the air, when people who have the disease cough or sneeze. Usually it attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. TB usually starts as an asymptomatic, latent infection that becomes an active disease, which untreated, kills more than half of its victims.

A giant condom will be ‘wrapped’ around the Dutch Munt Tower in Amsterdam this week. It’s probably one of the more striking activities that will mark World Aids Day. Meetings, film-viewings, theatre plays, articles, brochures and many other happenings will call upon people to join the fight against HIV and Aids. To effectively fight Aids though, we need to also fight tuberculosis.

Over the past two decades, the number of tuberculosis cases has risen worldwide, especially in developing countries of Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where co-infection with HIV is common.

Geneva, Switzerland (IRIN) – The number of people dying from tuberculosis fell to its lowest level in a decade in 2010, but experts warn that a shortfall of US$1 billion for TB programs in 2012, and the recent cancelation of funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, threaten these gains.

Soon it will be necessary to explain to patients infected with HIV and simple and multi-drug resistant strains of tuberculosis, and to the mothers who each year lose their children to malaria, why big banks have access to emergency rescue measures when they do not.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK/ROCKVILLE, MD, USA, December 1, 2011 – Statens Serum Institut and Aeras today announce the initiation of the first Phase I clinical trial of a new candidate TB vaccine designed to protect people latently infected with TB from developing active TB disease.  The trial is being conducted by the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) at its field site in Worcester, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Dr. Hassan Mahomed is the principal investigator.

The first and only amendment to the 1994 World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was agreed with much aplomb at the Hong Kong ministerial in 2005. But getting countries to ratify the amendment has proven more difficult.