In Europe, TB infections are declining and resulting in fewer deaths overall but not among those at relatively high risk, reports Reuters.
“The general downward trend in reported TB cases is encouraging,” the ECDC’s acting director, Andrea Ammon, said in a statement. “But some groups are not benefiting from this trend and we need to target our efforts better if we want to end the TB epidemic.”
She said providing testing to all TB patients for HIV, and vice versa, followed by counseling and rapid treatment, could reverse the negative co-infection trend.
Global figures released last year by the WHO showed that in 2015, some 1.8 million people died from TB. Of them, 400,000 were co-infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.
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