Tuberculosis and AIDS A conversation with Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu Editor’s Note: In recognition of World Tuberculosis Day, March 24, we print the following excerpt from a conference-call conversation with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, led by Dr. Joanne Carter, the legislative director of the grassroots citizens' group RESULTS on June 21, 2001.

Joanne Carter: Many of us in the U.S. have a false sense of separation of TB and AIDS. Not only is tuberculosis the greatest killer of people with AIDS worldwide, but also the first manifestation of AIDS in more than half the cases in poor countries. TB treatment is one of the most effective ways to improve the life and health of someone with AIDS.

The good news, and the tragedy in a way, is that we have an inexpensive cure for tuberculosis that’s one of the most cost-effective health interventions available in the world, and yet three-quarters of those sick with TB don’t have access. Tuberculosis is more of a political challenge than a medical one.

On an encouraging note here in the U.S., the awareness and support for expanded global tuberculosis efforts has grown immensely among policymakers, especially the U.S. Congress. And, in fact, U.S. funding for international tuberculosis efforts has grown from virtually zero just a few years ago to $60 million today, and a very prominent and bipartisan group of members of the U.S. Congress is seeking $200 million for tuberculosis next year to battle that globally, and that includes a contribution to the very important new Global Tuberculosis Drug Facility which was created by the Stop Tuberculosis partnership.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called in from Cape Town, South Africa. In his work to overcome apartheid and oppression in all forms around the world and in his work as a leader for justice and for peace, as a Nobel prize winner–he really needs no introduction. But I think what’s very important today is that in his work to forward human rights in South Africa and around the world, Archbishop Tutu has taken a leading role in calling world attention to the scourge of tuberculosis. This March, he was very involved in the global launch of World Tuberculosis Day [March 24], very appropriately from Cape Town, South Africa, with the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: As a 15-year-old, I contracted TB and was in hospital for 20 months. I vowed then to become a physician to find a cure for that scourge. I didn’t become a doctor, but there are those who have showed a wonderful zeal and commitment to rid the world of the scourge of TB, such as the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and Stop TB campaign. And I do want to pay them all a very warm tribute because it’s the efforts of those kind which help to destroy that other scourge–apartheid–which targeted especially the most vulnerable, the poor, those who couldn’t work, just as TB and now AIDS are doing.

As we have overcome apartheid, so we shall defeat TB and HIV/AIDS, these ungodly twin killers. TB is the most common opportunistic infection connected to AIDS. Fifty percent of those with AIDS contract TB, and TB is the leading killer of people with AIDS. One in three such persons die. The two epidemics fuel each other.

If we are to do something about AIDS, then we have to do something about TB. If we are to do something about TB, we are going to have to do something about AIDS. There are about 36 million people living with AIDS today, and two-thirds of that huge, huge number are to be found in Africa–in the most poor countries, the least developed countries. If you have TB [and] you also have the HIV virus, it is likely that that is going to develop into full-blown AIDS.

As I’ve said, TB is the leading killer of people who have AIDS, but we can do something about it. We can conquer TB because there is a cure [that] is relatively cheap, . . . only between $10 and $15 to provide six months’ supply of drugs per patient.

If the TB is not treated when it is related to AIDS, the patient is likely to die within five and six weeks. If the TB is cured, as it can be, the life span of that person is extended from two to six years, and you can imagine the enormous economic and social impact that must have, especially where it is the breadwinner who has been cured.

This is a wonderful opportunity ahead of the United Nations’ General Assembly Special Session for us to galvanize the international community so that it is committed to dealing with something that it can actually handle.

And, please, can we remember that we are not talking just statistics when we say 35 percent, 36 million [dying]? We’re talking about people of flesh and blood. We’re talking about someone who is somebody’s son, somebody’s father, somebody’s brother. It is people who can laugh, who can cry. It is people who can be cured, who can have their life span extended.

We defeated Nazism. We defeated slavery. We defeated communism, and recently we defeated apartheid. We certainly can defeat TB and AIDS. Thank you.

To read the complete transcript of the conversation–which includes Dr. Lee Reichman, author of Time Bomb: The Coming Plague of Multi-drug Resistant Tuberculosis–see the OutSmart website at www.outsmartmagazine.com. To work for TB legislation and other issues of world poverty with RESULTS, call 202/783-7100, e-mail results@resultsusa.org, or see their website www.resultsusa.org. Locally, you can reach RESULTS at 713/668-1209.