24 March 2014
24 March is World TB Day. It’s a day that provides the opportunity for affected persons and the communities in which they live, governments, civil society organisations, healthcare providers, and international partners to call for further action to reach people who have been infected with TB. All partners can help take forward innovative approaches to ensure that everyone suffering from TB has access to diagnosis, treatment and cure. The slogan for World Tuberculosis Day 2014 is “Reach the 3 million”.
The theme for South Africa is “Finding, treating and curing TB in hard to reach communities”.
The World TB Day national event will be held at Popo Molefe Stadium, Kokosi Township, Fochville (Merafong, West Rand). The focus of the event will be “TB in the mines” with specific emphasis on TB within peri-mining communities and beyond. The event is strongly biased towards the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. These labour-sending areas bear the brunt of the epidemic as returning countrymen increase the spread of the disease in their respective countries.
Miners in South Africa’s gold mines have the highest rates of tuberculosis (TB) infection in the world. The rate of TB infection among miners is between 3 000 and 7 000 per 100 000 of the population – between four and seven times higher than for the general population of South Africa, the country with the second highest TB rates in the world.
More than 18 months has passed since the signing of the SADC Declaration on TB in the Mining Sector in August 2012, which provided the impetus for countries to prioritise TB and address the specific vulnerabilities of mineworkers and former mineworkers. The issue has since garnered high-level political commitment, and the World Bank and other partners are helping to fill key knowledge gaps. Donors have also pledged new resources to implement interventions, and tangible progress is being made.
On 25 March South Africa will host a Ministerial Summit on harmonisation of the regional response to TB in the mining sector, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Fighting TB in the mines requires a collective response that includes the minis- tries of health, minerals, labour, and finance, CEOs of mining companies, mine workers, former mineworkers, civil society and development partners.
Objectives of the summit
The Ministerial Meeting seeks to highlight progress made in developing a regional response to TB in the mining sector following the SADC Declaration on TB in the Mining Sector. The specific objectives of this symposium are to:
- Provide analytical evidence of the economic costs and benefits of investments on TB in the mines and affected communities, and to engage key stakeholders to commit resources to address gaps in the current response.
- Endorse a framework for the harmonised management of TB in the mining sector, focusing on treatment protocols, diagnostics, and referral linkages.
- Discuss options for innovative financing for the implementation of the regional response to TB.
Background
TB Day on 24 March commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus.
At the time of Koch's announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch's discovery opened the way toward diagnosing and curing tuberculosis.
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