The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the TB Accountability Consortium say government has failed in its responsibility to prioritise TB and was not taking enough action on TB service deliverables.
Marking World TB Day on Sunday, the organisations said they were concerned about the lack of progress with the roll-out of TB services across the country and called on the government to fully capacitate the country’s National TB programme to lead and coordinate the implementation of its national TB strategies and guidelines.
The organisations have jointly called on the national government to declare TB a national health emergency.
TAC chairperson Sibongile Tshabalala said: “As the country marks 30 years of democracy, access to TB services is actually a realisation of the right to health enshrined in the Constitution and in the National Health Act.
“People living with TB in South Africa deserve the right to health.“
TBAC Programme Manager Russell Rensburg said: “As we move into the next administration, our goal today was really for TB to be a political priority.
We are not trying to underscore the achievements that have been made because they have been significant, but we have this constitutional right to healthcare, the obligation is to progressively realise, and with progressive realisation, we have to start with the people with the least access,” Rensburg said.
Speaking at the official commemoration of World TB Day 2024 in the Sedibeng District, Gauteng on Sunday Health Minister Joe Phaahla said although South Africa remained among TB high burden countries, there has been notable progress in the country’s fight against TB – a steady decline has been noted in the number of people diagnosed with TB each year since 2007 where the figure was 644 000 compared to 280 000 in 2022. TB related deaths are falling, but at a much slower rate, he said.
“As we remain steadfast in our quest to end TB, we must reflect on prevalent challenges that still remain in our TB response efforts, which call for joint and collective actions. We still have a high number of missing TB clients, we have a high detection gap among men owing to limited customized services, we have a lot of men dying from TB, we have a sub-optimal treatment success rate of around 75% for drug susceptible TB and around 60% for drug-resistant TB, the dual burden of HIV and TB further complicates TB management, we have inadequate coverage of TB preventive therapy at around 63% and sub-optimal contact management.”
“These are some of the issues that hinder progress, and our collective counter-response must focus on strengthening early case detection through targeted testing initiatives, particularly among vulnerable populations like men,” Phaahla said.
In terms of improvement in TB data systems, Phaahla said the TB Programme of the National Department of Health has developed a comprehensive TB Recovery Plan dashboard which is used by provinces and districts to monitor the progress of the TB programme.
Phaahla also announced the achievement of adequate financing of the TB response in the National Strategic Plan (NSP). “Just over R4 billion was budgeted in 2024/2025, meeting the projected needs.”
Cape Times