World TB Day: Making treatment more accessible
JOBURG — Department of health digs its heels in the fight against drug-resistant TB.
Lilly South Africa and the Department of Health held a three-day conference from 19 March on the decentralisation of Multidrug-Resistance Tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
As March 24 marks World Tuberculosis Day, the optimisation of providing treatment for MDR-TB has been highlighted because of the severity of drug resistance TB.
“The conference is designed to unpack challenges and successes and best practices from across the province. Over the years, there have been a number of successes but equally so many challenges still remain in the war against drug-resistance TB,” said Dr Norbert Ndjeka, directorate at the National Department of Health.
Currently, South Africa has the sixth highest burden of TB in the world after China and India and 1% of the population gets active TB every year. Unfortunately the number of MDR-TB cases continue to spike.
NGOs and various health care facilities continue to face challenges in the fight against TB as many people diagnosed with MDR-TB would not be treated for reasons, including months of waiting for admission to treatment facilities. “There is a negative impact on the social and economic status of the individual and family because of long hospital stays,” added Ndjeka.
According to the department of health, drug-susceptible TB can be treated with a six-month course of medicines, but drug-resistant TB requires more medication and can take up to two years to treat successfully.
Extensive training has been undertaken to raise awareness around MDR-TB, increase access to treatment and empower communities by eliminating the stigma of the disease. The partnership between Lilly SA and the department of health will aim to have treatment linkage officers in each district to help close the gap between the number of people diagnosed and the number of people initiated on treatment.
