EASTERN Cape Health MEC, Nomakhosazana Meth, says her department will intensify screening and testing for tuberculosis (TB) to minimise the number of new infections in the province.
Meth made the remarks as she delivered a keynote address at the provincial World TB Day commemorative event, held at Mgwenyane Village in Libode on April 13.
World TB Day is observed globally on March 24 each year.
“For us to address the problem of TB in our communities, we need to find strategies to identify people with TB so that we can put them on treatment. Unfortunately, we miss so many of them within the public health system. The District Health barometer quotes two studies that show that the public health system misses up to 63 percent of TB patients,” said Meth.
“The studies report that even though people who accessed a health facility in a high burden district reported coughing, only 23 percent were asked to give a sputum sample. This means that there are a lot of TB infectious people that are roaming around our streets and villages that the system has missed,” she added.
Meth said the province needed to be more aggressive in its provider-initiated screening and testing so that no TB cases get missed.
The Eastern Cape has the highest TB prevalence in the country.
TB survivor and activist, Noluvo Rasmeni, appealed to government to ensure that people who are on TB treatment are provided with decent food and more educational programmes to end the stigma associated with the disease.
“I would advise government to ensure that TB patients who are on treatment are provided with food parcels that ensure that they get nutritious meals, as some of them are from poor backgrounds and cannot take treatment on an empty stomach. There should also be support groups that encourage and monitor patients to adhere to their treatment,” said Rasmeni.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) World TB Report of 2020, approximately 10 million people globally fell ill from TB. The same report states that in South Africa, 360 000 people fell ill with TB, and of these 58 000 died. Amongst those that lost their lives, 36 000 were co-infected with HIV.
Meth said these are deaths that could have been avoided, while acknowledging that the report makes TB the number one killer disease in South Africa.
This year’s World TB Day theme is “You and I can end TB.”
