To End TB, We Must First Find It: The fight against TB in rural South Africa
By: Palesa Chidi
In rural South Africa, the fight against TB reflects deeper healthcare challenges. Poverty, distance, and resource shortages hinder proper TB care, with many unable to access regular treatment. The RHAP emphasises that tackling TB requires more than medication, it calls for addressing food security, clean water, and supportive healthcare structures.
The TB Accountability Consortium (TBAC) held a two-day national convening on October 24-25, 2024, at the Birchwood Hotel & OR Tambo Conference Centre in Boksburg, Johannesburg. This event brought together advocates, partners, and stakeholders to focus on enhancing the patient journey within TB care.
RHAP’s Outreach and Training Coordinator Zambini Madikiza set the tone of TB in Rural with the theme “To end TB, we must find TB”. Madikiza argued that to find TB there must be sufficient data that will help civil society to find and manage it. “Sufficient data is needed to guide and support civil society, communities and healthcare practitioners in getting TB back on track. Rural practitioners also say that taking services to the people is important for increasing access to care: ‘That’s how we can find cases.”
Madikiza further highlighted that there must be consistent engagement with care and addressing social determinants of health and access to nutritious food and clean drinking water. “Getting TB back on track we need sufficient information to guide civil society and communities in understanding and getting updates on the TB care cascade performance,” explained Madikiza.
One of the major obstacles to fighting TB in rural areas is the lack of nutritious food and the long distances people must travel to access healthcare. “People with no food, people who travel long distances to reach a clinic, people die while going to the clinics, people die without knowing or being diagnosed,” Madikiza pointed out.
It is well documented that the former homelands known as Rural Communities now, still face great challenges when it comes to access to healthcare, their socio-economic status makes it works, there is high unemployment and social grants are their main source of income.
Madikiza emphasised that the government must also land a helping hand in trying to alleviate the living conditions and help with access to food and clean water. “Communities access to healthcare shouldn’t only be about having medication or treatment and well-functioning clinics, but the government needs to also assess and see the environment they are living in and make sure there is access to food and clean water,” she concluded.