Scaling up treatment and care for HIV/AIDS and TB and accelerating prevention within the health system in the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania): economic, health financing and health system implications

The three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all having concentrated HIV epidemics among injecting drug users – Estonia with the highest numbers infected (7800) – one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics in the world – and Lithuania with the lowest number infected (1300). At the same time TB is still constituting a considerable public health problem in the three countries: Lithuania has 2527 Tuberculosis (TB) cases/year, Latvia 1835/year, and Estonia 717/year. TB-HIV co-infection rates are increasing. In 2004 Latvia had 40 people co-infected with TB-HIV and Lithuania had 8 people. The TB multi-drug-resistance, TB-MDR, is high from 13.1% in Latvia, 19.5 in Estonia and as high as 21.8% in Lithuania.