[A cursed duo: HIV infection and tuberculosis].

Tuberculosis remains a health problem of extraordinary magnitude, especially in developing countries. Unfortunately, many of the same countries have the additional burden of a remarkably high prevalence of HIV infection. Because of the inherent capacity of tubercle bacilli to take advantage of deficiencies in cell-mediated immunity, tuberculosis has become an extremely important infectious complication of HIV disease in those developing countries in which the two infections coexist; the same is true, although to a lesser extent, in developed countries among those groups of patients with HIV infection, in which there is also a high prevalence of remotely acquired tuberculosis.