Tugela Ferry

Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week presented what may be her final budget as head of the health portfolio. She used the opportunity to mainly present successes by her department. The minister also used the occasion to claim victory in the battle against AIDS declaring that the 2007 HIV antenatal survey has shown a 1,2% drop in HIV prevalence among pregnant women.

South Africa is struggling to contain an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is sending a permanent staff member to help, reported the Lancet.

A second-line drug treating extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is having toxic side-effects on patients in KwaZulu-Natal, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Saturday.

Delegates at a conference in Johannesburg last week drew up a seven point action plan to counter the threat of extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (TB), a newly emergent strain that seems to be resistant to nearly all existing drugs.

Africa is facing the prospect of a sharp increase in new and fatal strains of tuberculosis (TB) as drug-resistant forms of the disease find those living with HIV easy victims, according to medical experts.

A particularly drug-resistant tuberculosis discovered in eastern South Africa is likely to have spread beyond the rural area where 52 of the 53 people first diagnosed with the new strain have died, the doctor who discovered the super bug said.

The Department of Health said on Monday it had put surveillance systems in place to monitor the extent of the extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) problem in KwaZulu-Natal.