Call for all to help fight TB
2004-03-19 20:09
Cape Town - Despite being curable, tuberculosis was the main cause of death among HIV-positive patients on the continent, accounting for one third of all deaths in Africa, said Cape Town health director Dr Ivan Toms on Friday.
He was delivering the main address at a commemoration event of World TB Day on March 24, the them of which this year is "Every breath counts - stop TB now".
Toms said: "It is remarkable that, as we establish ARV (antiretroviral) sites in Cape Town, HIV-positive patients are progressing more rapidly to Aids or even dying in large numbers, of a condition that is curable."
According to Toms, TB continued to be a serious public health problem for the city, which had among the highest TB incidence rates in the world.
"Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Oostenberg districts register the most number of new TB cases each year.
One in four was positive
"For example, in Khayelitsha (a sprawling township of about 330 000 people) for every four sputum specimens tested, one was positive for TB."
Toms said that last year the total number of newly registered TB patients in the city increased to 22 999, of whom just more than 2 000 were children under seven.
He said that if authorities wanted to curb TB in Cape Town they would have to improve TB case-finding to pick up cases at an earlier stage, before it was spread to others.
"This is proving to be a real challenge because patients often come to our clinics only when they have been sick for a long time, and lab testing of large numbers is very costly."
Toms said there was also a critical need to reduce treatment interruption among patients.
Statistics that will shock
At Friday's event, certificates and tokens of appreciation were presented to clinics that achieved district and World Health Organisation targets.
Non-governmental organisations were also honoured for their contribution towards TB control in the city.
According to statistics released by the event organisers:
one-third of the world is infected with TB;
annually, two million patients die of the disease worldwide;
eight million new cases are diagnosed annually;
more women die of TB than maternal mortality; and,
TB is curable.
- SAPA