TB

TB

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Track the HIV & TB response

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  • Competition law has again worked to fight a bad drug patent, but we need other solutions

    A Competition Commission probe recently resulted in a patent on an important tuberculosis medicine being dropped in South Africa. Twenty years ago, a similar Competition Commission case resulted in a settlement that helped drive down the prices of several antiretrovirals, thereby helping to set the stage for the country’s HIV treatment programme. Fatima Hassan and…

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  • OPEN LETTER | Minister of Health Joe Phaahla, make TB a political priority

    In this open letter to Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla, TB activists call for the disease to be made a political priority and demand multisectoral departmental accountability. They outline six demands for implementation by the end of this year. The letter was submitted on the final day of the South African TB Conference being…

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  • Slow progress after decision to make TB prevention pills more widely available

    Besides preventing illness and death, tuberculosis prevention therapy is estimated to be highly cost effective. Yet, uptake of the medication is not what it could be in South Africa. Tiyese Jeranji asks how much has changed since the Department of Health last year decided to make TB prevention therapy much more widely available.

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  • What we can learn about TB at the autopsy table

    In addition to shedding light on what people actually die of, autopsies can also play an important role in helping us to better understand disease. Tiyese Jeranji unpacks tuberculosis-related autopsy research in the Western Cape and delves into some of the fascinating complexities of this branch of TB research.

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  • Someone close to me has been diagnosed with TB – what should I do?

    Tuberculosis can infect anyone. It is caused by bacteria and spreads through air and is very common in South Africa. Dr Janet Giddy shares how she deals with Mrs Worried – an anxious and fearful voice seeking advice when someone close to her, like her domestic worker, has been diagnosed with TB.

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  • New TB drug shows promise, but experimental vaccine disappoints

    While three new tuberculosis (TB) medicines have been registered in South Africa over the last decade, TB treatment still comes with several side effects and requires taking multiple different medicines, typically for six or more months. The search for better TB medicines got a boost last week with the presentation of promising findings from a…

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