Tuberculosis should be declared a public health emergency and ‘war rooms’ should be set up in each province to deal with the disease. And President Jacob Zuma should be compelled to explain to the SA National Aids Council the government's plans for dealing with the scourge and the progress being made. [s]The Times[/s] reports that these calls were made by NGOs – the [b]Treatment Action Campaign, Section 27[/b] and [b]Médecins Sans Frontières[/b] – ahead of the start of the national TB conference in Durban.The activists say that drug-resistant TB is on the rise and only 40% of victims, for which there is a shortage of effective medicine, survive. But the government says it needs a further R2bn to meet its 2016 targets of reducing the spread of TB and HIV. ‘Declaring TB, and the growing threat of drug-resistant TB, an emergency would require immediate action by the government to (stem the tide),’ said Section 27 lawyer John Stephens.
[link url=http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/06/11/tb-is-killing-us]Full report in The Times[/link]