ABSTRACT

Throughout the industrialized and developing world, tuberculosis and HIV disease are closely linked in mutually disadvantageous synergy: HIV infection promotes progression of tuberculous infection to disease, and tuberculosis accelerates the course of HIV disease (1,2). HIV infection greatly increases the likelihood that infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, either recent or latent, will progress to active tuberculosis. In fact, HIV infection may be the most potent risk factor for tuberculosis yet identified. Conversely, tuberculosis is the most common cause of death in persons with HIV infection throughout the world (Fig. 1).