SA Gov
Approximately 1.4 million Tuberculosis (TB) deaths could be registered between 2020 and 2025 as a direct consequence of the COVID-19.
That is according to the South African Medical Association (SAMA), which said that TB services have been severely disrupted by COVID-19 including funding.
SAMA chairperson, Dr Angelique Coetzee, has urged world leaders to move their prevention plans with speed. Her remarks come on the annual commemorations of world TB Day on Wednesday.
Dr Coetzee said that TB is treatable and preventable, but unless the barriers to successful control of the epidemic are addressed, the response to the TB burden will be ineffectual.
"These barriers are interrelated and include deficient drug supply, poor access to preventive and curative services, drug resistance, HIV co-infection, underlying poverty, lack of human, financial and material resources, as well as marginalisation, stigma and discrimination," she noted.
Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders used the TB Day commemoration to reflect on how drug-resistant forms of TB impacts public health and mostly children.
According to the World Health Organization, about 30 000 children are estimated to become sick with DR-TB annually and less than 2 000 of them are diagnosed and receive treatment.
Doctors Without Borders spokesperson, Dr Jennifer Furin, said there needed to be a child-centred approach to fighting the disease.
"We call for the initiation and expansion of non-invasive methods of diagnosis including the use of specimens that are easy to obtain from children, including urine and stool," she said.
"This is especially important given that induced sputum sampling has been very limited during COVID-19."
Deputy President David Mabuza, who is also the chairperson of the SA National Aids Council, delivered the government’s keynote address to mark World TB Day in Mbombela in Mpumalanga.
The government said this year’s theme; The Clock is Ticking! Let’s Find, Treat and End TB Now, is a clarion call on all South Africans to rally behind the national response to end the TB epidemic.
