Trend of HIV and tuberculosis co-epidemics in different regions of World Health Organization during 2003-2017

Abstract

Introduction: The co-infection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/tuberculosis (TB) is one of the main public health problems globally. Due to the importance of this problem, the aim of the current study was to determine the trend of TB patients with known HIV status and TB patients who are HIV-positive in different regions of World Health Organization (WHO) from 2003 to 2017. Material and methods: In the current ecological study, the needed information about the HIV/TB cases were extracted from the WHO website. To assess the trend of changes over the time of understudy variables, the Spearman correlation coefficient and figures were used. The statistical significance level for this study was considered as p = 0.05. All analysis was performed by Excel 2010 and SPSS version 22. Results: The percentage of TB patients with known HIV status during 2003-2017 had an increasing trend in all parts of the WHO regions. The HIV/TB co-infection showed a decreasing tendency for all regions, except Europe. Furthermore, the trend of HIV/TB co-infection in Europe was increasing during the studied period. Conclusions: Given that the diseases are global, not only countries should expand education and investing in HIV and tuberculosis control, but also international community organizations should attempt to identify and treat the infected patients in underdeveloped and developing countries.