Anti-TB fight has big return on investment, says health minister Motsoaledi

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said this on Monday, a day before the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town. The biggest international gathering of its kind, the conference is set to attract more than 3,000 scientists, policy makers and activists.

"We got the experts to complete the investment case for TB and they came up with five scenarios. The result was if we do nothing now, we will pay very dearly in the future," he said.

SA is among the countries hardest hit by the global TB epidemic, the world’s biggest infectious killer, responsible for 1.5-million deaths last year. SA, which has the world’s second-highest infection rate, had an estimated 380,000 TB patients last year, placing the country ninth-highest among the 22 high-burden states.

Stop TB’s new Global Plan to end TB, released on November 20, warned that unless there was an overhaul of its handling of TB, it would take more than 180 years to eliminate.

Dr Motsoaledi endorsed the plan’s call for change, saying SA had made major changes to the way it combats TB. The South African National Aids Council agreed two years ago that tackling TB was crucial in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and identified prisoners, mine workers and mining communities as vulnerable. A screening programme had been established this year to target these populations, said the minister.

SA has decentralised treatment for patients with multidrug-resistant TB, enabling many to be treated at home, and has installed seven Gene-Xpert diagnostic machines in prisons. SA had led the provision of bedaquiline to patients with multidrug-resistant TB, the minister said.

The Global Plan makes the business case for investing $56bn over the five years to 2020, arguing this would bring treatment to 29-million patients, save more than 10-million lives and prevent 45-million people from getting infected.

On Monday, health ministers and parliamentarians from around the world met to lend their support formally to the plan, under the banner of the Global TB Caucus.

British MP Nick Herbert, who co-chairs the caucus, said: "TB has had relatively few political champions over the years. We have been silent for too long. We are determined our own voices will be heard in our own parliaments, to ensure this plan is endorsed, paid for and TB eliminated."

A research report released on Monday by the Treatment Action Group found a big decline in investment and little growth in philanthropic support for research and development.

"This lack of funding has left TB researchers waiting for the resources required to put new ideas to the test and now threatens to forestall the TB community’s ambitious vision for the future: a world free of TB," the report said.

Source: BDlive