Lisa Isaacs
THE government has been called on to do more in the battle against tuberculosis, through increased efforts to prevent its spread and by providing better access to treatment.
This was the request of a group of nearly 1 000 people, including the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), partner organisations, health professionals and locals who marched to Parliament yesterday.
They also challenged MPs to get tested for tuberculosis, but none of the politicians pitched.
TAC general secretary Anele Yawa said the government should ensure all TB patients were provided with medication, and overcrowded prisons and some public spaces addressed to reduce the risk of contracting TB.
“We call upon our government and Department of Correctional Services to come up with means to control TB within prisons. We call on all people to stop paying lip service, and all people to roll up their sleeves and take action. If we don’t, many of us standing here will die in the next few years,” he told the crowd.
Yawa said TB could be closely associated with the living conditions of the city’s poorest.
A former prisoner and now member of the Sonke Gender Justice and Beyond the Bars support group for ex-inmates, Mthetho Molekazi, said he had contracted TB twice while in prison.
“The prisons are so overcrowded, some people have to sleep on the floor. In prison you have cells for 18 people, but sometimes 30 to 40 people have to stay in there,” he said.
Molekazi said the first time he contracted TB, he had to undergo six months of treatment, which included medication and injections. The second time, he contracted a multidrug resistant strain.
“Each day for two years I had to take 18 tablets a day,” he said.
“In the black townships, there is a stigma about TB. People think if you have TB, you have HIV. People in our community are scared to test for TB, even in this day and age. People believe the stereotypes, not reality,” said Sinethemba Sonandi.
Sonandi, who lived in Khayelitsha, said he contracted TB last year.“Some people don’t know that there are different types of TB, they think it’s all the same. People need to be made aware and I hope they are through my experience,” he said. TAC TB co-ordinator Neliswa Nkwali said the group was disappointed that MPs did not get tested, but would continue to push for government involvement in their campaign.
“We will not give up trying to engage government. But it is not a surprise. TB is always on silent mode, until you get tested. That is why we also want improved diagnosing tools,” she said.
Musician Johnny Clegg has also joined the fight, and donated R100 000 to the TAC. On June 23, he will host a concert in Joburg’s Nelson Mandela theatre to raise R1 million for a campaign to halt the TB epidemic.