SA: 700 New Tuberculosis Cases a Month in Three EC Hospitals

SA: 700 NEW TUBERCULOSIS CASES A MONTH IN THREE EC HOSPITALS

AfricanCrisis

02-Sep-2007

September 1 2007 -- PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa. Hospitals in South Africa's Eastern Cape province are grappling with increasing numbers of tuberculosis cases, with about 250 new patients each being admitted to Livingstone- and Dora Nginza hospitals each month. The province also has the country's lowest TB-cure rates with more than 200 new multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis patients being admitted from throughout the province to the Jose Pearson specialist-TB Hospital in Bethelsdorp each month, according to the Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex' chief executive officer Lulamile JamJam. Adding it all up, this amounts to 700 new TB cases being identified in one province of SA alone. And those are the 'official' government statistics.

The Herald Online, published in Port Elizabeth, reported that local TB control specialists issued public appeals to local businesses to 'prioritise TB in the workplace' during an unappetising-sounding event referred to as a 'TB-breakfast meeting' here this week.

TB-HIV co-infection rates are high in SA, with as many as 60 percent of all adult TB patients also being HIV-positive in South Africa. This means that Multidrug-resistant TB is beginning to get a free reign because the normal TB-treatments are no longer effective. This developing drug-resistant Tuberculosis+Aids infection rate can be seen by the fact that the Medical Research Council of South Africa already found five years ago that 1.6 percent of all the new TB cases and 6.7 percent of all the re-treatment cases had multiple-drug-resistant Tuberculosis.

The country now has many patients dying of extremely-drug-resistant Tuberculosis, but the exact number of XDR-TB deaths is not known: the latest available "official" health department statistics were published in February this year, and then stood at more than 600 XDR-TB deaths countrywide. Now, with 700 new TB cases being identified in one province of SA alone, these statistics have undoubtedly been raised dramatically since that time.

Lowest TB-cure rate in the country:

One way in which XDR-TB deaths can be measured is by the TB-cure rates, which in the Eastern Cape province ranks second countrywide.
It's ominous that the Eastern Cape has the highest number of new TB patients being referred to hospitals but also has the lowest TB-cure rate recorded countrywide.

"TB is a critical public health problem, but it is also a social issue. We will not get this epidemic under control without strengthening our health systems," claimed Dr Lindiwe Mvusi, head of the national TB control programme.

340,000 new TB cases in 2004:

In 2006, the World Health Organization ranked South Africa fifth among the world’s 22 high-burden TB countries. WHO's Global TB Report 2006 notes that South Africa had 340,000 new TB cases in 2004, with an incidence rate of 718 cases per 100,000 people – more than doubling the 338 per 100,000 in 1998.

TB-HIV co-infection rates are high, with as many as 60 percent of adult TB patients being HIV-positive. Multidrug-resistant TB is also soaring: the Medical Research Council of South Africa already found in 2002 that 1.6 percent of all the new TB cases and 6.7 percent of all the re-treatment cases had multiple-drug-resistant Tuberculosis.

LINKS:

USAID: TB gets $1.6-m annually, AIDS $5-m annually: Between 2000 and 2005, USAID funds for TB treatment in South Africa averaged $1.6 million per year.

Please note their budget justifications, in which they claim that 'deep economic and social fissures from the apartheid era persist..."

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SA: 700 NEW TUBERCULOSIS CASES A MONTH IN THREE EC HOSPITALS