KwaZulu-Natal might need to treat many more patients with multi-drug resistant TB in the next month, once four new testing centres are opened.

The centres will use a special genetic test that can identify MDR TB within a week, rather than the six to eight weeks it currently takes.

Provincial health department official Jacqui Ngozo told a meeting in Durban yesterday (27 May) that many people with drug-resistant TB died while waiting to be diagnosed.

‘€œWith the new PCR test, we expect double the patients because they will be diagnosed fast and will then need to be put on treatment fast,’€ Ngozo told the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria meeting.

But the province is already short of at least 100 beds for drug-resistant TB patients, who need 24 months of treatment, six months of which is supposed to be in hospital.

The four  new testing sites are at Inkosi Albert Luthuli, Edendale, Ngwelezana and Madadeni Hospitals. They will be opened towards the end of June once staff members have completed their training, said Ngozo.

At present, Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital is the only centre that is able to test for drug resistant TB. It currently processes about 15 500 specimens a month.

Last year, KwaZulu-Natal treated 117 600 TB patients. Of these, 1 478 were MDR cases and 199 were deadly extensively drug-resistant (XDR) cases.

Eight out of 10 MDR TB patients were also infected with HIV/AIDS, while almost 70% of those with ordinary TB also had HIV, said Ngozo.

The cure rate was just 63% last year, but this is a vast improvement on the 2005 cure rate of 40%.

Ngozo said the province had opted to treat many drug-resistant patients in their homes, particularly in the Msinga district which has been worst affected by XDR TB.

Almost nine out of ten affected households in Msinga had no income other than social grants, and three-quarters of these households were headed by single women, said Ngozo.

‘€œImagine what would have happened to their children if we had admitted these women to hospital for six months,’€ said Ngozo.

She said that the department was expanding its community outreach programme so that it could treat more patients at home. ‘€“ Health-e News Service.