TB patients burden SA
2006-03-26 08:10
Shadi Rapitso
Johannesburg - Tuberculosis patients who default on their treatment are costing the government thousands of rands.
The department of health said this week that the second treatment for a TB patient defaulter costs it R24 000 compared with the R400 it should be spending per person.
Department spokesperson Sibane Mngadi said most patients stop taking their treatment when they feel better.
He said these patients develop a multi-drug resistance, meaning that they have to take other more expensive drugs.
"Government pays R24 000 because drugs for resistant people are more expensive than the first line of drugs. This includes hospitalisation costs. It is critical for government to raise awareness and assist patients to follow their treatment," said Mngadi.
The TB crisis plan was released this week as South Africa commemorated World Stop TB Day on Friday.
It showed that there were more than 269 000 TB cases reported in 2004. Of these, 118 000 were new infection cases.
The report says TB cure rates for new smear-positive cases remain low at 50% with a successful treatment completion rate of 63%.
However, it shows a high proportion of treatment defaulters at 11.5%.
The report shows that Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape were the most affected. They account for 80% of the country's total TB cases.
Mngadi said the department had also identified the four hardest-hit districts in the worst-performing provinces. They are Johannesburg, Ethekwini, Port Elizabeth and Amajole in the Eastern Cape.
He said although Cape Town had a high prevalence of TB, it had an impressive 70% treatment outcome.
Mngadi said the department did not have clear data of how many people died from TB in South Africa because it was difficult to establish the cause of death.
But he concedes that South Africa and Africa face a TB crisis.
The report identifies a few challenges to South Africa's response to TB. These include poor financial and human resources support for TB programmes, poor management of patients which leads to defaulting, high mobility of patients, especially in the urban areas, poor referral systems and late detection of patients by health workers.
There are also challenges of inaccessible laboratory services to confirm diagnosis, unavailability of TB data from laboratories and questionable quality assurance in some laboratories, a lack of knowledge about TB and the importance of completing treatment, poverty and co-infection of patients with TB and HIV.
- City Press