Today is World TB Day. It’s time to take stock of the effectiveness of our tuberculosis (TB) prevention and treatment programmes and to ask why (after Covid-19 subsides) TB will still be the leading cause of death in South Africa.
At the height of any one of the four Covid-19 pandemic waves over the past two years, no one can argue they did not know the status quo around this deadly virus. Regular televised country briefings by President Cyril Ramaphosa were accompanied by daily maps and infographics telling us which provinces were hardest hit. A USSD Covid-19 line was swiftly set up and data about caseloads was just a *120* away.
Part of it is because the government set up intricate health data management systems to ensure that everyone could see the numbers and heed the calls of the government to manage the pandemic with the seriousness it deserved. Although South Africa has implemented a system to integrate TB data at facility level, there is some incoherence around the data systems that are currently in place. As a result, there are major gaps in the data that we have around TB.
However, the challenges around the TB data are only one part of the problem. The bigger picture is a lack of political priority around TB, leading to compromised governance and leadership and virtually no accountability.
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