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CALL FOR ACTION

The first HIV/TB Global Leaders’ Forum, meeting at the United Nations in New York on 9 June 2008,

• Recalling the General Assembly Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS (60/262, 2006) emphasizing the need for accelerated scale-up of collaborative activities on tuberculosis (TB) and HIV, the Millennium Development Goal targets for TB, and the World Health Assembly Resolution (WHA60.19, 2007), requesting countries to immediately address extensively drug-resistant TB and HIV-related TB as the highest health priorities, in line with the Global Plan to Stop TB 2006–2015;
• Concerned that every three minutes a person living with HIV dies of TB and that mortality rates have escalated over the past ten years despite TB being a preventable and curable disease;
• Noting that HIV and TB are major constraints for socio-economic development and that investing in joint TB and HIV interventions, will contribute positively to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals on poverty reduction by keeping people healthy and productive;
• Recognizing the importance of investments in a strong domestic health system in the delivery of universal TB and HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services by 2015;
• Mindful of global security issues and the new challenges associated with the emergence of drug resistant strains of TB that are particularly lethal in populations with high rates of HIV infection;
• Aware of the urgent need for new and improved drugs, diagnostics and vaccines that are appropriate for people with or at risk for HIV and TB co-infection;
• Emphasizing the need to engage affected communities, the wider civil society and the private sector in the joint HIV/TB response notably in prevention and care in or among affected communities, to fight stigma and discrimination, and to provide an enabling environment for people to access and utilize prevention and treatment services with human dignity;
• Confirming that saving lives among people living with HIV and cutting mortality associated with TB requires bold leadership and decisive, urgent action at all levels;

URGE all UN Member States, and CALLS ON Organizations of the United Nations system, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, the corporate sector, foundations, donors and the international community as a whole to:

• Adopt a person-centered approach to deliver integrated HIV/TB services ensuring that:

1. people living with HIV are able to attend health services without fear of contracting TB by implementing good infection control;
2. regular TB screening and preventive treatment are available in all HIV care settings; and
3. all TB patients can access HIV counseling and testing and appropriate HIV prevention, treatment and care;

• Prevent unnecessary deaths by including TB prevention, diagnostics, treatment (including treatment for drug-resistant TB) and adherence support in all national HIV action frameworks, strategies and services in the context of universal access;
• Set national targets and mobilize the estimated $19 billion¹ necessary to halve the number of people living with HIV who die unnecessarily of TB annually by 2015 (compared to 1990 levels, as stated in the Global Plan to Stop TB);
• Increase surveillance of TB and drug resistant TB among people living with HIV to monitor progress towards the goal of reducing TB mortality in people living with HIV;
• Mobilize communities, wider civil society and the private sector affected by HIV in the TB response and educate and empower them to become active partners in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB;
• Include HIV/TB as part of broader development and poverty reduction strategies and systematically strengthen health systems to be able to effectively respond to the needs of at risk communities; and
• Increase investment and facilitate research to promote the development of better tools - drugs, diagnostics and vaccines - for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of TB, in particular for people living with HIV.

REQUESTS THE SECRETARY GENERAL (through his Special Envoy to Stop TB) to:

• Report regularly on progress in addressing HIV/TB to future UN General Assembly Special Sessions on HIV/AIDS , High Level Meetings on HIV/AIDS, the World Heath Assembly and other important health and development meetings convened by the United Nations system
• Report back on progress at the Stop TB Partnership Partner’s Forum, to be held in March 2009 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

First HIV TB Global Leaders’ Forum, 9th June 2008, New York

¹ Covers 8 years, 2008-2015; includes $14 billion for direct interventions and $5 billion for research, and represents about one third of the total estimated global resource needs for TB control each year. Costs estimates and methods are consistent withthe UNAIDS Global Resource Needs Estimates