SA high on risk factors

VIRUS: 1 090 TB, 10 950 HIV/AIDS PATIENTS NOT COLLECTING MEDICINE

There is a high rate of disorders that make people’s immune systems dysfunctional in SA.

With high rates of HIV, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, South Africa ticks all the Covid-19 epidemic’s risk boxes.

And it’s emerged that thousands of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/Aids patients have not collected their life-saving medication since the lockdown began.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, the infectious disease specialist who chairs the government’s advisory committee on Covid-19, has warned that HIV-positive people and TB patients not on treatment may increase the severity of the virus.

In an oral reply to the Democratic Alliance (DA), Gauteng health MEC Bandile Masuku revealed that since the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions on 27 March, 1 090 tuberculosis patients and 10 950 HIV/Aids patients have not collect their medicine.

The party’s spokesperson on health in Gauteng, Jack Bloom, said Masuku revealed this during the virtual sitting of the provincial legislature yesterday. The percentage reduction in chronic medicine collection amounted to 1.4% for TB patients and 19.6% for HIV/Aids patients.

“These reductions are of concern because interruptions in medicine will lead to health deterioration and drug-resistance for TB and HIV-Aids patients.

“Both these diseases claim a large number of lives – there are about 60 000 TB and 70 000 Aids-related deaths in South Africa

Picture: AFP A worker disinfects Lahore railway station in Pakistan as train services prepare to resume yesterday after the government eased a nationwide lockdown imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.