Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
‘Treat TB with the same urgency as Ebola’
HEALTH Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has received an international award from the US Agency for International Development for his role in the global fight against tuberculosis (TB).
According to the world body, Motsoaledi has provided outstanding leadership in the country and region, making the required impact on the scourge.
He championed bold initiatives in the screening, treatment, prevention and co-infection of TB, HIV, as well as multidrug-resistant TB.
And during the award ceremony on Thursday evening, Motsoaledi challenged all countries to intensify the fight against TB.
He said: “It is time for the world to treat TB with the same urgency it demonstrates in responding to major new health threats like Ebola and the Zika virus.”
TB was responsible for more than 1.5 million deaths and infected nine million people globally every year.
“Despite this, it did not evoke the emotions, passion, urgency and requisite activism that the world has seen in all other epidemics,” Motsoaledi said.
“It has killed more people in the last 200 years than the major epidemics like Ebola, malaria, HIV, smallpox, bubonic plaque, influenza and cholera added together,” he said.
In his acceptance speech, Motsoaledi appealed to world leaders, heads of state and governments and major institutions, religious leaders, activists and academics to put TB on the agenda in the same way they did other pandemics.
His appeal was also directed at the likes of the Brics nations, the EU, G7, G20, AU and the UN General Assembly.
“First and foremost we want them to work together with urgency to find an effective vaccine against TB to ensure that no one contracts the disease in the first place.
“In the meantime, we must be able to diagnose TB with a rapid diagnostic test much like we have for HIV,” the minister said.
“We must have an effective treatment in weeks, rather than months, without the debilitating side effects of current treatments.”
His department would embark on a massive screening campaign during this year’s World TB Day next Thursday, he added.
ntando.makhubu@inl.co.za