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.
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.
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.
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.
On September 22 ministers, heads of state, and other officials from around the world will gather in New York for the second United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB. Yet, a few months ago it was not the governments these officials represent, but two philanthropies that stepped in to ensure arguably the most important TB trial of the decade has the funding needed to proceed. Marcus Low contrasts commitments made at the previous UN High-Level Meeting on TB with recent data on funding for TB research and asks what this tells us about the state of the global response to an age-old killer.
It is estimated that over 65% of the global HIV burden is in sub-Saharan Africa. Now, in an attempt to propel African voices and perspectives in the next phase of the HIV response in Africa, a group of Africans established an African-led HIV control working group (HCWG). They are all experts from the continent who have come together to develop consensus perspectives on the long-term sustained control of HIV and prioritise the systems and capabilities to achieve it. Drs Yogan Pillay and Izukanji Sikazwe explain the thinking behind the new working group and set out their objectives.
Tracing the close contacts of people ill with tuberculosis (TB) and offering them TB preventive therapy is part of South Africa’s strategy to fight TB. A recent analysis found that such an approach of tracing household contacts and providing them with TB preventive treatment is cost-effective and would – by 2025 – cut deaths by 35% among household contacts of all ages and people living with HIV. In light of these new findings, Tiyese Jeranji assesses the state of contact tracing in South Africa’s public healthcare system.
A massive and much-anticipated phase 3 trial of an experimental tuberculosis (TB) vaccine is set to proceed after funding for it has been secured from two large philanthropies. If the trial’s findings are positive, the vaccine is likely to become the first new TB vaccine in over a hundred years to be widely used. Marcus Low reports.
In March this year, the director-general of the Northern Cape government, Justice Bekebeke during a parliamentary oversight visit acknowledged that about 80% of the health facilities in the province did not meet their performance targets of finding people with tuberculosis and helping them complete treatment. Refilwe Mochoari looked at the statistics and spoke to several roleplayers about why the province is missing its TB targets.
In 1984, the then-head of Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital, Dr David Jenkin lamented inadequate services for TB patients, writing that “it is unflattering to realize that only war and pestilence appear able to bring more beds for TB sufferers”. Almost 40 years later, despite major scientific advances, TB hospitals like Brooklyn Chest remain important for treating complicated forms of the disease, where specialised healthcare staff can monitor medication interactions and side-effects. Biénne Huisman takes a look back at the hospital’s 151-year history and the difference it is making in the lives of children with TB today.
Every year, tens of thousands of people who fall ill with tuberculosis in South Africa are not diagnosed. Because of this, there has been much focus on testing people earlier rather than waiting for them to show up at clinics when they are already sick. One potential solution, explored in a trial called XACT 2, is community-based testing using a point-of-care molecular test. Tiyese Jeranji spoke to experts involved with XACT 2 and unpacks the study’s findings that were recently published in Nature Medicine.
People in South Africa who fall ill with tuberculosis (TB) often also have other health issues. HIV, which drives much of the TB epidemic in South Africa, is the most obvious co-infection, but people who fall ill with TB are also more likely to have diabetes and mental health problems than the general public. Tiyese Jeranji spoke to local experts about the interesting links between TB and liver problems.