SWAZILAND DEVASTATED BY TB

The Swazi government’s slow response to a fast-growing tuberculosis (TB) epidemic has eroded the possibility of controlling it.

Themba Dlamini, the Swaziland’s National TB Control Programme manager, says there has been a nearly ten-fold increase in the last 20 years from about 1 000 TB cases per year in 1987 to over 9,600 cases in 2007. Swaziland also has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate; people living with HIV/AIDS are significantly more vulnerable to catching tuberculosis.

‘This escalation of TB cases can be attributed to the HIV/AIDS epidemic," said Dlamini. "80 percent of the TB cases are also co-infected with HIV.’

The kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is falling short of meeting the World Health Organisation (WHO) TB treatment rate of 85 percent. Its treatment success rate is 42 percent, while the case detection rate stands at 57.7 percent - against a 70 percent detection target stipulated by the WHO.

Each year there are roughly 14 000 new TB cases diagnosed among the Swazi population of one million people.