Publications
HST provides free electronic access to over 500 health systems research related reports, publications and papers. Close to 300 of these are publications that have been commissioned and funded by the Trust. Topics include among others district systems development, drug supply management, human resource development, informatics, legislation, finance, environmental health, mental health, lessons learnt, nutrition and sexually transmitted diseases / HIV/AIDS. The main publication of the HST is the annual South African Health Review. From 2005 all HST publications will be available in low resolution only. To explore the range of publications HST offers use the Advanced search to search using a variety of criteria.

DOTS is being implemented in an attempt to address the resurgence of the TB epidemic and the emerging MDR TB epidemic in South Africa. DOTS focus on smear positive pulmonary TB patients, as they are the mainly responsible for feeding the epidemic in alliance with the HIV epidemic.

TB smear microscopy is the advocated method for diagnosis and to monitor progress and treatment outcomes. As the development of an affordable and rapid diagnostic kit for on site use in less developed and resource poor settings through the WHOs Diagnostic Initiative and other agents will probably not realise in the near future, TB smear microscopy for diagnosis and monitoring treatment outcomes is here to stay for the foreseeable future. To facilitate the implementation of DOTS, 13 new smear microscopy centres were established in the Northern Province in collaboration with the South African Institute of Medical Research since 1997. Extending the smear microscopy network without reducing the turn around times and quality assurance of the results is a relatively pointless exercise. Several activities were introduced to improve the quality of TB smear microscopy results, but as the quality of results was not assessed in a systematic way, whether this was achieved is not known.