According to UNAIDS (2008), tuberculosis remains the most common opportunistic infection for people living with HIV. It is a fact that a person living with HIV is more likely to succumb to TB and that a person with TB is more likely to be HIV positive. People living with HIV have been shown to be twice as likely to have multi-drug resistance tuberculosis (MDR-TB) as people who do not have HIV infection (WHO, 2008).

While there has been a steady increase in HIV and AIDS reporting across the southern African region over the past five years, this has not happened with the TB story.

 Just as the health sector has failed to provide integrated services towards treatment of HIV and TB in many countries, the media has equally failed to highlight the linkages between the two epidemics.

Is this because the media does not understand TB? 

Is it because health ministers and departments are not doing enough around TB and HIV?

The emergence of multi-drug and extreme-drug resistant strains of TB, both of which are far more challenging to treat than conventional TB makes it more crucial for the media to advocate for greater awareness of the linkages between TB and HIV.

 Key Issues

There is need for the media to gain an understanding of TB and its link to HIV and share this with audiences across the region 

• It is also important for journalists, through their reporting, to lobby for more co-ordinated services and responses to TB
• Because many people deem the TB story to be too technical, the media needs to maintain a human interest element in covering issues to do with it
• Because a national integrated response to TB and HIV is missing in most of our countries, the media needs to lobby for it through their coverage

Sources:  

www.who.int/topics/tuberculosis/en/

health.rutgers.edu/Immunization/TB.htm

www.cdc.gov/tb/faqs/default.htm-