South Africa: New TB battlefront

TB affects 500000 South Africans a year and is also a "middle-class" disease.

Last year, the GeneXpert machine that gives TB results within hours was installed in 242 government clinics and hospitals across the country and more than 1.3million people were tested.

The machine is better at detecting drug-resistant TB than some laboratory tests.

The results show that 5% of the 500000 new TB cases diagnosed each year are drug-resistant, as opposed to the 1.8% that was previously thought, according to Nazir Ismail from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases' Centre for Tuberculosis.

He said the higher number of multidrug-resistant TB cases was not only because of the spread of the disease but also due to better and more widespread testing.

Multidrug-resistant TB takes two years of medication to cure and has about a 50% to 60% cure rate.

Many of the antibiotics to treat it have toxic side effects, with one drug causing deafness.

Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute pulmonologist Dr Andrew Black said the higher number of multidrug-resistant TB cases meant two things: "People have a greater chance of catching drug-resistant TB and the treatment cost carried by the government will be very high."

A recent article in the PLOS journal estimated the cost at R67000 per patient.

Black urged people to see a doctor if they had persistent coughing.

"It is a misconception that middle-class people don't get TB. If one in every 100 people are going to get TB a year, it has to make the jump across classes," said Black.

He said middle-class people were often diagnosed very late with TB.

'Some doctors act as if, if you have a medical aid card, there are certain diseases you don't get."

Black said both HIV and diabetes are risk factors for TB as they weaken the immune system.

Health department spokesman Joe Maila said the government was concerned at the higher prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB.

Source: Times LIVE