A much larger TB drug resistance problem exists than researchers previously thought. New global data on TB, published this week by the World Health Organization (WHO), highlight serious weaknesses in many national TB programmes, increasing the potential for widespread TB drug resistance. How did we reach this precarious state?

Not much good news tends to emanate from Khayelitsha. More often than not the sprawling Cape Town township is associated with high levels of violent crime, poverty, disease, unemployment and a lack of basic services and housing. But the township has made huge inroads in tackling TB, a curable disease that mostly infects people living with HIV and poor people.

Until recently, Mandla* was a nurse at a Durban hospital. But for the past few months, he has been a patient trying to shake off multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB.