Right2Know Campaign

Statement: R2K Western Cape supports TAC march on World TB Day

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On the 24th of March, World Tuberculosis Day, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) will be marching to the National Parliament demanding accountability to our government on Drug Resistance TB.

The Right2Know Campaign believes that it is critical that civil society and patient organisations are engaged in the design and implementation of these programs to ensure that all programs meet the needs of the patients.

The Right2Know further demands that in order to ensure transparency and clarity of information about TB drugs available, strengths and weaknesses, comprehensive education to patients must be provided to ensure that they are making informed decisions about their treatment.

Furthermore, R2K urge government, national health bodies, international agencies and non-governmental organisations to outline the circumstances and conditions in which new TB drugs should be used and provide guidance on how to develop the necessary regulations for CU/EAP and licensure in highly affected countries.

South Africa ranks sixth on the list of top “High Burdened” Countries to Multi drug TB treatment.

TAC demands the following:

  • The availability of Multi drug TB treatment.
  • Decentralization of XDR and MDR treatment/care and services
  • Better diagnostic tools for MDR & XDR patients
  • TB in prisons (Better management of TB in prison)
  • Access to multi drug TB treatment

 

According to TAC, in 2012, 8.6 million people fell ill with TB and 1.3 million died from TB. It is a leading killer of people living with HIV causing one fifth of all deaths. In 2012 about 320 000 people died of HIV associated TB.

According to research, Drug-resistant TB is a human-made result of interrupted, erratic, or inadequate TB therapy, and its spread is undermining efforts to control the global TB epidemic.

Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is defined by resistance to the two most commonly used drugs in the current four-drug (or first-line) regimen, isoniazid and rifampin. WHO treatment standards require that at least four drugs be used to treat TB in order to avoid the development of further resistance. The stories of those living with drug-resistant TB are harrowing.

According to the World Health Organisation, Eastern Europe’s rates of MDR-TB are the highest, where MDR-TB makes up 14 percent of all new TB cases. In some parts of the former Soviet Union, up to 35 percent of new TB cases are multidrug-resistant. Among previously treated cases in the same region, reported rates of drug resistance are commonly above 50 percent and as high as 62 percent. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, outbreaks of MDR-TB in North America and Europe killed more than 80% of those who contracted the disease. During a major TB outbreak in New York City in the early 1990s, one in 10 cases proved to be drug-resistant.
MDR-TB and XDR-TB develop when the long, complex, decades-old TB drug regimen is improperly administered, or when people with TB stop taking their medicines before the disease has been fully eradicated from their body. (Global Alliance for TB Drug Development)
They claim that once a drug-resistant strain has developed, it can be transmitted directly to others just like drug-susceptible TB. Today, it is believed that direct transmission is the most common way drug-resistant TB is spread, and further assists this emerging global health threat.

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