New TB drug shows promise, but experimental vaccine disappoints

By Elri Voigt, March 11, 2024

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Focus, HIV/AIDS, InFocus, Latest, Spotlight, TB

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 study conducted in South Africa on an experimental drug called quabodepistat. Elri Voigt reports on this and other TB studies presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Denver, Colorado.

Tags: featured HIV TB tuberculosis

New TB drug shows promise, but experimental vaccine disappoints

EDITORIAL | With elections and NHI, this is a big year for healthcare in SA

By Marcus Low, January 24, 2024

Posted in: Comment, Editorial, Gauteng, HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal, Latest, Spotlight, TB

South Africa is barrelling towards its most consequential and most competitive national and provincial elections since 1994. Spotlight editor Marcus Low asks what is on the line in these elections from a healthcare perspective and argues that the stakes are particularly high when it comes to NHI and the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provincial health departments.

EDITORIAL | With elections and NHI, this is a big year for healthcare in SA

Analysis: SA close to meeting TB research funding targets, but most countries falling short

By Catherine Tomlinson, December 6, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB, TB

South Africa is one of only six countries to ever meet their “fair share target” for funding tuberculosis (TB) research, according to a new report. In absolute terms however, South Africa’s contribution is small change compared to investments into TB research made by the top two contributors, the United States government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks what the report tells us about investment in TB research in South Africa.

Analysis: SA close to meeting TB research funding targets, but most countries falling short

Antibiotic slashes risk of drug-resistant TB in kids, finds major SA study

By Elri Voigt, November 27, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB, TB

Tuberculosis (TB) preventive therapy has been transformed in recent years, with treatment duration having been cut from six or more months to just three or one. Progress in developing new treatments to prevent drug-resistant forms of TB has however lagged behind, especially in children. Elri Voigt unpacks findings from a major new TB prevention study presented at the Union World Conference on Lung Health last week and plans for another important preventive therapy trial set to start soon.

Antibiotic slashes risk of drug-resistant TB in kids, finds major SA study

Interview: “Someone had to do it”, says SA TB activist on Time 100 list

By Sue Segar, November 22, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB, TB

At the age of 19 Phumeza Tisile contracted multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. For four years she battled the disease, losing her hearing in the process. At one stage, a doctor told her to visit a priest and prepare her soul for death. Recently, Tisile (now 33) made it on to TIME magazine’s 2023 TIME100 Next list, as one of 100 emerging leaders round the world who are “shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership”. Sue Segar chatted to Tisile about her remarkable journey.

Interview: “Someone had to do it”, says SA TB activist on Time 100 list

Interview: “The situation is not going away,” says inspiring TB doctor

By Biénne Huisman, November 7, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB

Dr Juli Switala (42) has treated children in Nigeria, helped fatally ill patients during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, and delivered babies at a hospital in Afghanistan against a backdrop of upheaval and violence. But nowhere cuts close to her heart quite like Brooklyn Chest – the tuberculosis (TB) hospital on Cape Town’s north-western fringes. Biénne Huisman chatted with Switala about her work in hospitals around the world, the challenges of treating kids with TB, and going for a run to get away from it all.

Interview: “The situation is not going away,” says inspiring TB doctor

In-depth: Can CO2 monitors help protect healthcare workers from TB?

By Elri Voigt, October 6, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB, TB

A recent study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that there was an association between healthcare workers’ exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their risk of being exposed to tuberculosis (TB). Elri Voigt unpacks the study’s findings and asks experts how CO2 monitors work, how well they predict the risk of TB exposure, and in which settings these monitors might be most useful.

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In-depth: Can CO2 monitors help protect healthcare workers from TB?

Hospital histories: Sizwe, where lives have been saved since Joburg’s earliest days

By Ufrieda Ho, October 4, 2023

Posted in: Healthcare system, Healthcare Workers, Latest, Provinces, TB

For the past 128 years, a hospital tucked away on what was once a rural farm in Johannesburg East has been fighting to turn the tables on a disease that has plagued humankind for millennia. Ufrieda Ho has the latest in Spotlight’s special series of ‘Hospital Histories’.

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Hospital histories: Sizwe, where lives have been saved since Joburg’s earliest days

Analysis: How does SA measure up against new TB recommendations?

By Marcus Low, September 28, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB, TB

A new report from the Lancet Commission on Tuberculosis (TB) titled ‘Scientific advances and the end of tuberculosis’ makes several recommendations for how governments should go about fighting the deadly, but curable, disease. Spotlight editor Marcus Low puts the Spotlight on how South Africa’s TB programme is measuring up against the recommendations.

Analysis: How does SA measure up against new TB recommendations?

Opinion: Better data and transparency needed if we are to live up to TB rhetoric at UN

By Sihle Mahonga Ndawonde, September 22, 2023

Posted in: Latest, TB, TB

The second United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis is taking place in New York today. Sihle Mahonga Ndawonde argues that better TB data and more transparency are needed in South Africa if we are to get and stay on the road to meeting the ambitious targets set and endorsed at this UN meeting.

Opinion: Better data and transparency needed if we are to live up to TB rhetoric at UN

Interview: “The only good TB bacillus is a dead one”, says UCT’s Prof Valerie Mizrahi

By Biénne Huisman, September 20, 2023

Posted in: Healthcare system, Healthcare Workers, Latest, TB, TB

Professor Valerie Mizrahi, a world-leading tuberculosis researcher and director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town, is retiring at the end of the year. Biénne Huisman sat down with Mizrahi to talk about her journey in TB research, passing the baton to a new generation of researchers, and how she helped build a research ecosystem that brings together specialists across the basic, clinical, and public health sciences.

Interview: “The only good TB bacillus is a dead one”, says UCT’s Prof Valerie Mizrahi

In-depth: Why an Eastern Cape TB hospital closed and what comes next

By Luvuyo Mehlwana, September 13, 2023

Posted in: Eastern Cape, Healthcare system, Latest, Provinces, TB, TB

Two years ago Orsmond TB Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay closed its doors as a result of dwindling patient numbers. The closure made headlines for the fact that 45 staff members continued to be paid despite the closure. Luvuyo Mehlwana takes a closer look at both the situation at Orsmond and the wider trend of TB hospitals being closed or repurposed.