It is fitting that of all days Jaco Joseph leaves the Brooklyn Chest Hospital for good on Thursday ‘€“ World TB Day.

The 17-year-old Vredendal teenager entered the hospital gates in September 2002, critically ill with Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR TB) and still mourning the death of his mother Katriena who died of the same disease.

On Thursday, a day that serves as a reminder for the world that millions are dying of a curable disease that predominantly affects the poor, Jaco will board a minibus taxi for the hot, four-hour drive to his new home in Vredendal where his foster parents are already caring for this younger brother Dimitri.

‘€œIt has been a long time and it was very difficult for me because I was feeling better after eight months of treatment, but I couldn’€™t leave as I was not cured,’€ he explains in Afrikaans.

Jaco spent most of his time in the Cape Town hospital watching television (He adds that he enjoys love stories starring Jennifer Lopez) and listening to rap and R & B music.

Jaco had to undergo two operations at Tygerberg Hospital to have sections of his damaged lungs removed and has been subjected to many injections and more drugs than he cares to remember.

‘€œI have come to know a lot of people during my stay, but I am looking forward to going home, to return to a healthy life,’€ he says.

Jaco will be returning to grade 9 in Vredendal after completing some of his schooling while in hospital.

‘€œMy aunt and her children are now living in our home in Vredendal. Both my mom and grandmother have died and I don’€™t know where my father is. He used to come around when my mom was still alive, but I haven’€™t seen him since her death,’€ says Jaco.

Asked whether he would miss anyone in Cape Town, Jaco pauses for a moment: ‘€œYes, I think I will miss the professors and the doctors who cured me. They helped me to understand my body.’€

When Jaco boards the taxi on Thursday morning, with his one bag of clothing, many will be silently cheering for the miracle teenager, who arrived a tired and very ill child and will be returning home a healthy young man.

* Health practitioners fear MDR TB as potentially the most serious aspect of the TB epidemic. MDR TB refers to TB, which is resistant to the two most important first line TB drugs, Isoniazid and Rifampicin.

Patients usually develop MDR TB when they fail to complete their course of TB drugs while in other cases MDR TB carriers infect them.

Treatment of MDR TB takes at least 16 months, costs up to 100 times more than ordinary TB and has been associated with extraordinarily high mortality rates in HIV infected patients. Even HIV negative patients are at high risk of dying.

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