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Thandeka Moyo, Health Reporter
BULAWAYO remains burdened by tuberculosis amid reports that multiple drug resistant TB which is costly to treat is on the rise.

Recent statistics from the local authority show that multiple drug resistant tuberculosis cases rose from 77 in 2015 to 85 in 2016. Of the 85 detected last year, 83 were treated and the other two people died.

Tuberculosis is an infectious bacterial disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs and is transmitted via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease.

TB continues to be the leading cause of death among people living with HIV, and approximately 70 percent of Zimbabweans suffering from TB are co-infected with HIV.

Speaking during a media briefing, council chief nursing officer Ms Thokozile Hove said the TB success for Bulawayo is around 83 percent as some patients die before they can treated.

“Through our community education programmes this year, we managed to identify 460 TB patients, 11 of those were drug resistant to the first line of TB treatment. Our treatment success is 83 percent, a high number among those deaths are comorbidities where you find that people who have TB also have conditions like anaemia, renal failure and liver failure,” said Ms Hove.

“Drug resistant TB coming up slowly, we started in 2010 and over the years we are identifying more and more patients with DR TB. We are treating them though some die before they receive treatment.”

She said most of the TB patients who were tested were also found to be co-infected with HIV. “This year we had targeted to reach out and we managed to put 11 percent of those we met on ART. As of May 2017, about 50 233 patients are receiving ART from our 19 clinics and we continue to scale up programmes to spread health messages so that at least 90 percent of our population can know their status,” said Ms Hove.

Its costs $30 000 to treat one person for multiple drug resistant TB.

According to the 2016 World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Report, Zimbabwe is part of 30 countries highly burdened by TB.
Zimbabwe is one of only 14 countries around the world designated as a TB “high burden” by WHO.  – @thamamoe