Jaco Joseph (17) returns to his Vredendal home after almost three years in Cape Town hospitals as doctors battled to cure him of Multi Drug Resistant TB. Jaco will return to his foster parents and six year old brother after losing his mother to the same disease. Anso Thom spoke to him before he boarded a minibus taxi.
In downtown Durban, health experts are pioneering treating TB and HIV together.
South Africa has one of the highest TB rates in the world but a cure rate of only 54%. On International TB Day, Health-e investigates the disease that is the country's biggest killer.
Researchers in Stellenbosch and Zambia are testing hundreds of school children for TB infection as part of a study which aims to cut the TB burden in half.
Doctors struggle to cure multi-drug resistant TB, while patients experience multiple side-effects. Health-e reports from an MDR-TB referral unit in Klerksdorp.
The TB rate in Cape Town continues to be among the highest in the world, yet the city has managed to achieve impressive cure rates.
South Africa is the country with the highest co-infection rate of HIV and TB in the world, with more than half of those who have TB also testing positive for HIV. People with HIV are most likely to die of tuberculosis than any other opportunistic infection. But if detected early, death from TB can be prevented even in the presence of HIV infection.
Government will be able to supply state patients with three antiretroviral drugs (triple therapy) for around R100 a month.
Scientists agree that a short and relatively inexpensive combination of anti-retrovirals could reduce mother to child transmission rates in Africa more effectively than the widely used single combinations, but less than 10 percent of the women worldwide who need it are accessing the drugs.
Only 850 000 South Africans have actually been tested for HIV in the past four years, while 1.2 million people have had pre-test counselling. The low rate of testing is a common problem worldwide, which has led to countries such as Botswana and the US making the HIV test a routine service available at primary health facilities. Does South Africa plan to change its approach to Voluntary Counselling and HIV testing? Health-e finds out.
More people are affected by the negative impact of poor water supply and sanitation than by war, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction combined, according to a paper published in this week's issue of The Lancet. Almost 4 000 children are killed everyday by this 'silent humanitarian crisis'.
A priority over the decade ahead will be to ensure that a caring and competently managed health service is available in every community, Finance minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament during his presentation of the 2005 budget. A huge chunk of the Budget was allocated to welfare spending. Health-e captures the health-related highlights in the new Budget.
Two reports investigating the causes of death in South Africa have been released in the past month. The long-awaited Statistics South Africa report has revealed a 57% increase in reported deaths between 1997 and 2003. A Medical Research Council/University of Cape Town report shows explicitly that most deaths are due to HIV/AIDS.
Central to the many efforts to address poverty is the safety net provide by state grants. However, fraud and corruption amounting to R1-5-billion is taking place every year, especially in the area of disability grants.
Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has acknowledged that the battle against TB is far from won, at the same time expressing frustration in trying to provide ARVs without a proper surveillance system to monitor numbers. 'We are working in the dark and you just give the medicine and hope God will be on your side,' she told journalists in Cape Town.
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