Above: Deputy President and Chairperson of SANAC, Cyril Ramaphosa, delivers the keynote address at the launch of the TB screening campaign on World TB Day.
South Africa’s Tuberculosis (TB) epidemic is the third largest in the world, behind India and China. To address this public health threat, Deputy President and Chair of SANAC, Cyril ramaphosa, and the Minister of Health and Chair of the Stop TB Partnership Board, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, launched the biggest TB screening campaign in the history of South Africa, entitled “ending South Africa’s TB epidemic: Accelerating our response in Key Populations”.
The campaign focuses on people at higher risk of TB infection and an estimated 150 000 inmates, 500 000 mine workers and 5.1 million people living in peri-mining communities will be screened for TB. In addition to these populations, children will receive special attention and will be tested in Early Childhood Development centres. This is an attempt to decrease the number of total deaths due to TB in South Africa from 120 000 to 20 000 a year.
Demonstrating the political leadership and commitment of South Africa, Deputy President Ramaphosa said “We have made great strides in our efforts to overcome HIV and AIDS. We have mobilised millions of South Africans to test regularly for HIV. We have initiated nearly 3 million people on anti-retroviral treatment. Now is the time to do the same to stop TB.
”The campaign was launched in Kanana, a gold mining town near Klerksdorp, in the North West Province on World TB Day, 24 March 2015. The town, birthplace of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and TB survivor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was chosen for the launch because of its reputation for its extraordinarily high TB incidence. The campaign will last until 2017 and will target six mining districts in four provinces.
SANAC estimates that 119 000 people died of TB in 2012 in South Africa. The World Health Organisation estimates that there are approximately 530 000 new infections each year in South Africa and of those new infections about 66% of people who are co-infected with HIV and TB.
Between 2007 and 2012, multi-drug-resistant TB doubled to over 14 000 cases. Drug-resistant TB is caused by failure of patients to adhere to their treatments or inappropriate treatment. In response to drug-resistant TB, the Deputy President said that South Africa has the largest roll-out of GeneXpert machines that help improve the diagnosis.
Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, called the campaign “an unprecedented national effort and campaign?impressive because of its vision, boldness, country ownership and courage.”