The right to a life free from TB Timur Abdullaev, LL.M. HIV/AIDS and TB consultant and activist

What is this right? No single universal human rights document speaks specifically about the right to a life free from TB: does this mean there is no such right?

Isn’t it discrimination… …when drug users with TB are turned out of a TB hospital, if seen under the influence of drugs? …or when HIV-positive prisoners with TB have limited or no access to HIV and TB treatment, which is available to people at large?

Can we speak about the right to the highest attainable standard of health… …when there are no pediatric formulations, and children with TB have to take same dosage as adults? …when people on TB treatment face stock- outs or are given expired drugs? …when diagnostics does not allow timely detection of extra-pulmonary, and even pulmonary TB?

Doesn’t it amount to inhuman and degrading treatment… …when a drug user with TB is locked up in a TB hospital, where there is no access to OST, nor to detoxication, and from where he/she is not free to go?

Isn’t it a violation of the right to life… … when a person dies from a preventable and curable disease? TB remains to be the leading cause of death for people living with HIV worldwide In Ukraine, 75% of deaths of people with HIV are caused by TB co-infection

In EECA there is a wide range of problems causing these violations: - Poor conditions in TB hospitals and prisons - Widespread injecting drug use - Highest rates of HIV spread in the world - Low awareness about TB - Understaffing of the TB system - Stigma and discrimination - Lack of collaboration/integration between TB and HIV systems, etc.

DOES IT MEAN THAT THESE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ARE JUSTIFIED?!

Thank you!