8 year old Solomon, born with HIV and cured of drug resistant TB in the GHC/St Peter’s Hospital DR-TB Program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Focus
TB, HIV, and the world
Every year, TB and HIV jeopardize the lives of millions of people who lack access to existing treatments due to poverty, conflict, and marginalization.
In 2024, 1.3 million people lost their lives to TB, making it the most common cause of death due to an infectious disease in the world.
Another 9.2 million people with HIV could not access treatment in 2024, endangering their survival and further spreading HIV infection.
TB has been and continues to be the largest cause of death in persons with HIV/AIDS, even though TB is curable, even in people with advanced AIDS.
TB has caused the death of a third to a half of the 42 million people who have died of AIDS since AIDS emerged in the early 1980s.
Drug resistant (DR) TB occurs when the TB bacteria mutates and becomes resistant to antibiotics used to treat ‘regular’ TB. Treatment requires drugs with many side-effects and because of the delays in diagnosis and treatment many patients cycle through ineffective treatments and are left with damaged lungs and weakened hearts even if cured.
Untreated, each patient with DR-TB infects 10 others.
When drug resistant TB infects and causes disease in persons with HIV/AIDS, it is particularly deadly, with mortality increasing 12-fold.
How does GHC provide access to and scale up care?
We work with local staff, communities and national programs to ensure people have access to treatment for TB, drug resistant TB, and HIV care.
We integrate our programs into the local and national health care systems in the countries where we work, so the health infrastructure is strengthened.
We provide each patient with the best care possible while improving standards of local and global care.
We save lives and decrease suffering now with the medicines we have in our hands, and use science to find new and better treatments for the future.
This 17 year old girl is feeling better after one month of treatment for drug resistant TB (DR-TB) in the GHC/St Peter’s Hospital Program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She lost her older sister to tuberculosis (TB), presumably due to DR-TB. When as a young girl, she also became sick with TB, she feared the same future. Her illness forced her to quit school in 10th grade when she became ill, and she was sick for another year before she reached the GHC team and was started on therapy for DR-TB. She received tutoring during the months she was hospitalized, which helped her catch up with her grade level while her health was being restored.
Pheurn, shown in 2003 in the above photo with his wife in Svay Rieng, was the first patient to receive the antiretroviral therapy cocktail to treat HIV in rural Cambodia. Pheurn was being treated for TB by our team when his HIV infection was discovered. He was cured of TB and began HIV treatment and has been faithfully taking HIV medications for the past 21 years. He is shown with 2 of his 7 grandchildren in the upper right photo in October 2024 in Svay Rieng.
Healing the world one life at a time
Dr.Daniel Meressa, GHC Medical Coordinator at the time, examining a teenager with drug resistant TB at St. Peters Hospital in Addis Ababa.