Media

What the data tells us about South Africa’s TB response

By: Aphelele Buqwana Since its launch last year, the National End TB Dashboard has given researchers, advocates, programme managers and communities a clearer view of how TB testing is being delivered across the country. By making routinely collected testing data publicly available, the dashboard has allowed for closer examination of testing patterns across provinces, districts, age groups and sex. But South Africa’s efforts to find people with TB earlier continue to face gaps in testing, with access and reach varying across population groups and districts, while 56 000 people die from TB each year. Having access to the data has created an opportunity to look beyond national testing figures […]

‘TB robbed me of my health and my profession’: Patricia Bond’s battle with MDR-TB

By: Aphelele Buqwana For more than two decades, Patricia Bond cared for other people as a professional nurse. But in 2010, the healthcare worker found herself on the other side of the hospital bed, fighting for her own life after being diagnosed with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). Bond had been working in the Kidney and Dialysis Unit in Claremont, Cape Town, since 2008 when she first became ill in September 2010. At first, she was diagnosed with pneumonia and treated with antibiotics, but the treatment did not bring the improvement she expected. “I was on antibiotic treatment, but my cough and malaise continued,” […]

The runner who challenged the TB stereotype

By: Rene Sparks and Aphelele Buqwana Neal Anthony Stacey had always seen optimism as a way of looking at life, but his experience with TB changed the way he understood suffering, illness and the people behind the disease. As he met more people through the years, particularly after becoming involved in TB awareness, he began to understand how differently people experience the TB disease. “All of us had our own suffering,” he says. “Hard is hard, but there isn’t harder or less hard with TB.” For Stacey, that understanding came from experience. A fit and active sportsman, he never imagined […]

Eastern Cape’s TB Caucus strengthens oversight through TB training

By: Aphelele Buqwana In the Eastern Cape, the fight against TB does not end when someone walks into a clinic. Finding people with the disease, getting them onto treatment and supporting them to complete it are all part of a longer care journey, with people at risk of being lost at each stage. For the province’s TB Caucus, understanding these gaps is becoming an important part of its role in overseeing the TB response. These issues were at the centre of a Basic TB Management Training Programme hosted by the Eastern Cape Department of Health, Eastern Cape Legislature and Eastern […]

TB Champions put advocacy into action across Khayelitsha

By: Rene Sparks Forty TB Champions gathered at Isivivana Centre in Khayelitsha on 11 and 18 September 2026 for training on the TB Advocacy Toolkit, bringing practical community experience into discussions about how to strengthen TB advocacy. The TB Champions, supported by TB Proof, work across four health facilities in the Khayelitsha Sub District. Their engagement during the sessions went beyond learning about advocacy tools, with participants sharing ideas on how they could reach more people in their communities and support health facilities to improve TB testing. A key concern raised was the need to reach more men. Participants discussed […]

Could tongue swabs help close South Africa’s TB testing gap?

By: Aphelele Buqwana Getting tested for TB often means producing a sputum sample as the first step. But this can be difficult for people who have no symptoms, cannot cough up sputum or cannot easily access their local clinic. In South Africa, these gaps in testing contribute to thousands of people with TB going undiagnosed. An estimated 65 000 people with TB were missed by the health system in 2024, meaning they may not have been diagnosed or received treatment. Researchers in the country are looking at whether a simple tongue swab could offer another way to screen for TB, […]

OPINION | Govt’s lack of transparency makes it difficult to monitor efficacy of TB programmes