A year after the worldwide coronavirus pandemic hit South Africa, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has said the government was ready with a “catch-up plan” to tackle tuberculosis (TB) treatment in the country.
Mkhize said this when he and Deputy President David Mabuza travelled to the north of the country to join the rest of the world in observing World Tuberculosis Day in Mbombela on Wednesday.
The minister admitted that the immense attention given to stopping Covid-19 in the past year had derailed treatment for diseases like TB and HIV/AIDS due to the lockdown measures put in place at health facilities to slow down the deadly virus.
“We will be talking to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) but I think it’s an important point that we all acknowledge that Covid-19 situation disrupted the treatment for TB,” the minister told reporters in responding to the petition.
He added: “We have a catch-up plan to try and increase the number of people who are coming in every month for TB treatment and those who get followed up for treatment and those who complete the treatment.”
The minister spoke after his boss, Mabuza, had earlier been presented with a petition from TB and HIV/Aids treatment activists who claimed that the government had neglected its treatment role of the old but deadly diseases.
South Africa has some 154,000 people who need to be diagnosed to start receiving their TB treatment in the country, TAC general secretary Anele Yawa said when handing over the memorandum to Mabuza.
“Everyone should be screened and treated for TB,” Yawa said.
Mkhize, who spoke to the media on the sidelines of the commemoration, said the government would now make sure that TB patients were prioritised as before the pandemic upended general medical treatment at the country’s health facilities.
TAC activists staged a protest outside the commemoration venue, demanding that TB and HIV/AIDS treatment be taken as seriously as has been the Covid-19 treatment campaign.
NM/jn/APA