Note to Editors: Please note Dr Imran Keeka, MPL sound bite in English
As we mark World TB Day today – with the discovery of the virus on 24 March 1882 by Dr Robert Koch – the disease remains a pressing threat in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), with an estimated 50 000 to 65 000 cases annually and far too many lives already lost.
KZN’s Health Portfolio Committee has made every reasonable effort to launch a provincial TB Caucus – an essential step to align oversight with the realities of this epidemic. Regrettably, these efforts have been frustrated by the conduct of a single senior official – within the Office of the Premier (OTP) – whose obstruction has delayed progress since last year.
Such conduct is not merely administrative blocking of the committee’s work. It stands in the way of prevention, coordination and ultimately, the many lives that can be saved as part of a co-ordinated approach.
The DA will call upon KZN Premier, Thami Ntuli, to intervene decisively. It is intolerable that this single individual’s stubbornness should impede a response to a disease that is both preventable and curable.
The KZN Department of Health’s (DoH) Annual Performance Plan (APP) targets a 77% treatment success rate and a 10% reduction in TB incidence and mortality annually. It recognises the strong linkage between TB and HIV, and the need for integrated case finding through index testing and provider-initiated counselling. Emerging tools such as AI-assisted diagnostics and TB-NAAT – a test that can detect some drug-resistant TB strains – are noted as advances.
However, persistent challenges remain; poor adherence to treatment, loss to follow-up, and the growing threat of drug-resistant TB. While prevention and community-based interventions are rightly emphasised, the APP fails to state a clear provincial TB mortality figure. Instead, the DoH relies on derived estimates of approximately 10 000 deaths annually, extrapolated from national data and provincial burden proportions.
This omission is not trivial. As the APP itself implies: “The APP commits to a 77% TB treatment success rate and a 10% reduction in incidence and mortality yet fails to quantify the true burden of disease facing KwaZulu-Natal.”
World TB Day in KZN this year must be a moment of accountability and action for the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU), of which the DA is a solid parter. No obstruction to the work of provincial government and that of establishing a TB Caucus is tolerable and the DA in KZN will stand against any wilfully obstructive official that disregards or hampers attempts to turn this situation around.