An active approach to identifying TB at the community level is needed in a country with one of the highest rates of the disease in the world.

Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi commemorated World TB Day by unveiling the only GeneXpert system in Africa on Thursday.

Sibongile has been diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) three times; this year she found out she has multidrug-resistant TB.

The battlefield in the fight against TB has been mapped out in the province with the highest prevalence of the disease -- KwaZulu-Natal.

By 2015 more than two-million people will contract a form of TB resistant to standard drugs, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

Diagnosing extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) will be reduced from several weeks -- and in some cases several months -- to about a week.

A programme to trace people who default on their tuberculosis (TB) treatment was officially launched in the Northern Cape on Friday by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. All provinces have established TB tracer teams of nurses and community health workers who visit homes to find defaulters and return them to their treatment regime.