Low-Cost TB Test for HIV Patients Can Save Thousands of Lives

Thursday, March 10, 2016

A low-cost urine test that detects tuberculosis in people living with HIV can save thousands of lives, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, a Cape Town University researcher said on Wednesday.

Nearly 40 percent of adults with HIV/AIDS in Africa die of TB as almost half of TB cases remain undiagnosed and untreated, according to researcher Keertan Dheda, whose study was published in The Lancet medical journal.

“For patients with advanced HIV, it’s hard to diagnose what infection they have and it’s particularly hard to diagnose TB,” Dheda told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

TB is the leading cause of death in people with HIV in low- and middle-income countries, Dheda wrote in The Lancet. The World Health Organisation has said TB now rivals HIV/AIDS as a leading cause of death from infectious diseases.

Source: Reuters (link opens in a new window)

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