Newly re-elected as head of the global Stop TB Partnership, Motsoaledi said that despite TB being “the world’s biggest killer”, it gets a fraction of the attention and resources of other diseases.

“It is killing 1,5 million people per annum and infecting nine million others,” said Motsoaledi, speaking on the eve of the international Union World Conference on Lung Health due to start in Cape Town tomorrow (2 Dec).

UN Special Envoy on TB Dr Eric Goosby said TB has been with us for over 4000 years, yet 4 400 people a day are still dying from TB.

“We know how to cure it but we have been unable to strengthen and sustain our health systems to deliver this,” said Goosby.

The Stop TB Partnership’s new global plan calls for 90 percent of those with TB to be put on treatment by 2025, with a 90 percent treatment success rate.

This would save 830 000 lives and avert four million new infection – but would also need an investment of $30-billion in the next nine years.

“People ask me how we can afford to address TB but I ask how can we not afford to,” said Motsoaledi.

He said TB now a focus of the SA National AIDS Council and that government was concentrating on addressing TB in key groups vulnerable to TB such as prisoners and mine workers.

Meanwhile, University of Cape Town medical student Zolelwa Sifumba described how she had contracted drug-resistant TB while training in one of Cape Town’s hospitals after failing to wear a protective mask.

“The worst thing about [drug-resistant] TB is the treatment. I was nauseous all the time and my joints ached all day,” said Sifumba. “It took 18 months of treatment and I thought I wasn’t going to make it. As a medical student, I knew all the side effects – psychosis, loss of hearing, liver failure.

“TB is airborne. Any one of us can get it. We need better drugs with fewer side effecys and shorter courses.” – Health-e News.

An edited version of this story also appeared on the Independent Online