Assistant Professor, VIT University, Chennai
Online published on 15 March, 2019.
PLHAS/TB implies to the People Living with HIV AIDS with Tuberculosis. The emergence of Human Immune deficiency virus (HIV) has paved the way for the resurgence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection pulmonary as well as extra pulmonary. Multidrug resistant (MDR) and other rarer forms of TB have also become more prevalent. As a result, HIV and TB Co-infection is on the rise more, so in the developing countries like India.
Because the HIV infection weakens the immune system, people with TB infection and HIV infection are at very high risk of developing TB disease. All HIV-infected people should be tested for TB. If they have TB infection, they need preventive therapy as soon as possible to prevent them from developing TB disease. If they are diagnosed with active TB disease, they must take medicine to cure the disease.
One third of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide are co-infected with tuberculosis. Approximately 90% of the people living with HIV die within a few months of becoming sick with TB, if they do not receive proper TB treatment. HIV is rapidly spreading in India, which has the largest number of TB cases in the world. There are already 180,000 Indians living with HIV who are also infected with TB. Bellary, being the 2nd highest in the state of Karnataka for HIV infection also records more number of TB cases among the HIV infected persons. In order to know the prevalence of TB among HIV infected persons, surveillance of HIV-TB co-infection started in the year 2000. A total of 7182 persons were screened for HIV infection when they attended Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centre (VCTC) at Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), Bellary. All of them were counseled and tested for HIV infection from the year 2000 to 2003. Pre test and post test counseling is done for all persons who attend VCTC.2168 (30.18%) persons turned out to be positive for HIV in serum by Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. The HIV infected persons were screened for TB infection, wherever it is indicated. 540 persons were found positive for acid fast bacilli in sputum smear examination by Ziehl-Neelson (ZN staining) method. Directly Observed Treatment program for TB cases is implemented in the hospital to treat the infected persons. Effective surveillance for the past four years starting from the year 2000 to 2003 in this area indicates that 24.91% (540) of TB cases among the HIV positives (2168), with an incidence of 29.44% (88/299) in the year 2000, 25.38% (133/524) in the year 2001, 26.95% (162/601) in the year 2002, and 21.10%(157/744) in the year 2003. Proper surveillance, counseling and awareness programs are very much essential to combat this curable disease in HIV infected persons. (Source: Department of Microbiology, Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, Bellary., India)
Thus the present paper aims to bring out the Socio-Economic Conditions of the People Living with HIV AIDS (PLHAs) with Tuberculosis in the union territory of Puducherry.
