RESEARCH ARTICLE Tuberculosis among peop I

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground The co-infection of tuberculosis (TB) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) poses a major challenge to public health for both developing and industrialized countries [1]. According to WHO (2012) [2], an estimated 1.1 million new TB cases were reported among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). TB still presents a lead-ing cause of morbidity and mortality among PLWHA, including those on antiretroviral therapy (ART) [3]. The greatest burden of TB/HIV co-morbidity was found in Sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately 79 % of global TB/HIV cases occur [2]. Analogously, recent studies from Europe showed that Sub-Saharan African immigrants were at the highest risk of TB/HIV co-infection among the general population [4-6]. Germany is a low incidence country for TB and a low HIV-prevalence country. It has a population of 80.5 mil-lion of whom about 8 % are foreign nationals and 20% are estimated to have a migration background, predom