Research is being done to determine the extent of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in South Africa, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said on Tuesday.
He was briefing reporters about the work of the government’s social cluster of departments — those of health, social development, housing, water affairs and forestry and education — in Pretoria.
Director general for the Department of Health Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku said XDR-TB, regarded as virtually untreatable by the World Health Organisation (WHO), has now spread to all South Africa’s provinces.
”The growth of XDR-TB and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis [MDR-TB] is creating a challenge of ensuring that we have hospital beds for isolation in order to insure that we deal with infection control,” he said.
He said the department was working on several fronts trying to prevent further infections.
”We know that in many of our provinces one of the challenges we face is that of infrastructure.
”We know that we need to isolate some patients with MDR from XDR and other patients,” he said.
In the meantime, the national health laboratory service is busy ”re-looking their data” on XDR-TB and MDR-TB.
Patients suffering from TB are being tested for XDR-TB immediately rather than as in the past, when medical services waited to see if drugs would work.
The department is also looking at the families of those people infected with XDR-TB and those who they had contact with.
Regarding the government’s response to HIV/Aids, Skweyiya said ”significant progress” is being made.
He cited the 425-million condoms distributed last year, the 4 189 voluntary counselling testing sites that are up and running and the 239 244 people who had been started on antiretroviral therapy as examples of progress. — Sapa