Devex: Diabetes — a serious threat to ending TB
Sarabijt S. Chadha, project director with the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease, Sharath BN, faculty in the Department of Community Medicine at ESIC Medical College and PGIMSR, and Sachi Satapathy, technical officer at the Union

“…Several risk factors have been associated with TB including HIV, smoking, malnutrition, poverty, and others. A fast emerging addition to this list is diabetes, which significantly increases the risk of TB. … [T]here is still an opportunity to control the TB-diabetes co-epidemic — provided we act rapidly. The first step is to implement the The Union-WHO recommended collaborative framework on prioritizing countries at higher risk and advocates for collaboration of the national programs on TB and diabetes at all levels of the health system. All patients should be screened for diabetes and all the diabetes patients should be screened for symptoms of TB periodically — and managed accordingly. … The upcoming third International Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa in July is an opportunity to discuss how multilateral development agencies can assist governments in aligning TB and diabetes programs in LICs and MICs — and encourage investment of funds and other resources towards strengthened collaboration…” (6/18).