As March is Tuberculosis (TB) Awareness Month, the City of Cape Town‘s Health Department is focusing on creating awareness around ‘Targeted Universal Testing for TB (TUTT)’.
According to the National Department of Health, ‘TB has been the leading cause of death in the province for more than a decade’, with one person in South Africa falling ill with TB ‘every seven minutes’.
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World TB Day falls on Sunday, 24 March with the theme for this year being ‘Yes, we can beat TB’.
Untreated TB is ‘a fatal disease’, but it can be treated and cured, and precautions can be taken to ‘avoid getting TB’, according to the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health Councillor Patricia van der Ross.
‘The country has one of the highest TB burdens in the world,’ said van Der Ross
‘While the disease is highly infectious, we also have the means to stop it in its tracks.’
Targeted Universal Testing
In the City of Cape Town statement, Councillor Patricia van der Ross explained the concept of targeted universal testing:
‘Previously, we tested people who presented with TB symptoms and those in vulnerable groups. With targeted testing, as recommended by the NDoH, we now test those people who have been in close contact with a person diagnosed with TB as well, regardless of their symptoms.’
Risk factors
The biggest risk factors for a person to become infected with TB bacteria, or breath in TB, are being in close proximity to someone who already has TB, as well as sharing ‘the same enclosed space or living arrangement for one or more nights’.
This also includes sharing the same space at ‘work, school, college or public transport’ for frequent or extended periods throughout the day.
Ways to reduce the spread of the TB bacteria include keeping windows open, allowing sunlight into your home and practising good hygiene by ‘covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing’.
TB testing
A person can take a TB test for free at all City of Cape Town clinics, and you can still take a TB test even if you don’t exhibit any symptoms.
You should, however, take a TB test if you:
- Have been in close contact with someone who has TB of the lungs during the three months before they began TB treatment
- Received TB treatment in the last two years
- Have recently been diagnosed with HIV
- Are HIV-positive and taking Antiretroviral Therapy
- Are pregnant and HIV positive
A list of clinics can be viewed at www.capetown.gov.za/clinics.
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