HIV as a Risk Factor for Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis: A Systematic Review

Winstone Zulu is featured prominently in a tuberculosis (TB) and HIV awareness campaign sponsored by the Stop TB Partnership, a network of organizations, countries and donors that have made the elimination of tuberculosis a priority. He is a Zambian who contracted HIV and later acquired infection with TB. He managed to survive the coinfection when so many around him, including four of his brothers, died of tuberculosis in the 1990s. This defining experience led him to become a leading advocate for TB and HIV patients worldwide. Like those in his family, many people in sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the world who suffer from TB and HIV do not survive the deadly combination. The terrifying consequences of the two infections have now become even graver- a newer threat of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) jeopardizes what little control there is now over the dual epidemic. Understanding the relationship between HIV and MDR-TB has profound implications for the many people like Winstone Zulu's brothers, who have all but received a death sentence.