Reach 3 million on World TB Day
JOBURG - 24 March is World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, which serves to raise awareness about the burden of the disease worldwide.
This year’s slogan for World TB Day is ‘Reach the three million’. According to the World Health Organisation, TB is curable but current efforts to find, treat and cure everyone with the disease are insufficient.
Of the nine million people who get sick with TB each year, a third are “missed” by healthcare systems: there is slow progress in tacking multi-drug resistant TB, with three out of four of these cases still remaining without diagnosis. Many of these three million people live in the world’s poorest, most vulnerable communities or are among marginalised populations such as migrant workers, refugees, prisoners, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and drug users.
The World Health Organisation said that progress towards global targets for reductions in TB cases and deaths in recent years has been impressive. TB mortality has fallen over 45 percent worldwide since 1990, and incidence is declining. New TB tools, such as rapid diagnostics, are helping transform response to the disease and new life-saving drugs are being introduced.
However, the global burden of TB remains huge and significant challenges persist.
In 2012 there were an estimated 8.6 million new cases of TB and 1.3 million people died from the disease. Even though over 95 percent of TB deaths occur in low and middle income countries, the airborne disease is a risk to all.
TB is among the top three causes of death for women aged 15 to 44, and in 2012 there were 74 000 deaths among children.
More people die of TB than any other disease in South Africa and it is important to get tested, especially if you are HIV-positive or have a cough. One can get a TB test at any clinic, hospital or doctor’s surgery. The most common way to test for the disease is to test sputum, which is mucus from the throat.
Witkoppen Health and Welfare Centre on William Nicol Drive is one of the places in the Fourways area that does TB testing and offers the necessary help to manage the disease.
Details: 011 705 2438
011 705 2438, info@witkoppen.co.za
