“The advent of a fourth pandemic, in COVID, puts these hard-fought gains in great jeopardy,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, a nonprofit organisation promoting HIV treatment worldwide. Unless comprehensive efforts to beat back the illnesses resume, “we’ll continue to play emergency response and global health whack-a-mole,” Warren said. Among them: dispensing to patients multi-month supplies of TB and HIV drugs, as well as condoms, lubricants and needles; using digital tools to monitor TB treatment; and testing simultaneously for HIV, TB and COVID-19. For example, in Nigeria, community health workers who tested people for COVID also looked for cases of HIV and TB. Donors have committed to provide another $6 billion for HIV and $2 billion for TB over the next three years, Sands said.

Source: bd News24 September 08, 2021 01:07 UTC