The global war on AIDS could be lost if the world ignores tuberculosis, often a “death sentence” for people infected with HIV, former South African president Nelson Mandela said yesterday.

“The world has made defeating AIDS its top priority. This is a blessing, but TB remains ignored,” the frail Nobel laureate and AIDS campaigner told reporters at a global conference in Bangkok.

About 14 million people are infected with HIV and TB, with 70 percent living in sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest hit by HIV/AIDS which has killed 20 million people worldwide.

HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, destroys the immune system and makes patients more vulnerable to diseases such as TB, an infectious respiratory illness which accounts for up to one third of all HIV/AIDS deaths worldwide.

“We cannot win the battle against AIDS if we do not also fight TB. TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS. It does not have to be this way,” Mandela said.

He described his own bout with TB while imprisoned for 27 years for fighting apartheid before leading South Africa to democracy in 1994.

“I went to my friends in prison, Walter Sisulu and others, and told them I was found to have the TB germ. There were long faces drawn,” said Mandela, who at 85 remains a tireless AIDS activist despite bowing out of public life in June.

Mandela, who recovered after four months of treatment, said resources for detecting and treating TB were woefully short despite the world having a cure for more than 50 years.

More money for TB fight

A fierce critic of the Bush administration and the war on Iraq, Mandela is to speak on Friday at the closing of a conference where Washington has come under fire for its AIDS funding and drug policies.

Controversy over US support for a U.N. backed global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria has overshadowed this week’s discussions at the summit attended by 17,000 people.

Research into the dual tuberculosis and AIDS epidemic got a boost yesterday with a $45 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The philanthropic organisation set up by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said the money would fund studies into strategies to control TB in areas with high HIV infection rates.

“This is a catastrophic collision of two devastating epidemics,” said Richard Chiasson, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research which is leading the research consortium.

CREATE, the Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS-TB Epidemic, will conduct three large-scale community studies in Africa and South America over seven years.

Scientists want to improve detection of TB to ensure people can be treated and do not infect others. They will also study a therapy which aims to prevent those infected with latent TB from developing an active form of the disease.

<B>Mandela hopes to convince people</B>

Most developing nations use a therapy plan called DOTS which has limited reach because it targets only those with active TB.

Health experts hope Mandela’s message will convince people with HIV and TB to tell their stories and raise awareness about the dual epidemic.

Winstone Zulu, a Zambian who spoke alongside Mandela, said he had lost four brothers because they lacked access to TB drugs, which he said should get as much attention as life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for people with HIV.

“Many of these people will get TB and if they can’t get TB drugs, by the time they get ARVs they will die,” Zulu said. “If my brothers had access to TB drugs, they would be alive today”.