SA's fight against tuberculosis (TB) will be given a technological boost, with health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi yesterday unveiling new strategies to aid diagnosis and treatment.
At an event held at Prince Mshiyeni Hospital, in Durban, to mark World TB Day, Motsoaledi announced government would make use of both geographical information system software and smartphones to enable easy management of TB information.
Motsoaledi also unveiled a new diagnostic machine, GeneXpert, which will dramatically speed up the diagnostic process, making results available in two hours - as opposed to the current three weeks. The new equipment is one of only five such machines in the whole world.
"SA is still one of the countries in the world with the highest burden of TB. We know that the scourge of HIV and Aids has also complicated our TB situation, given the high co-infection rate between HIV and TB,” said the minister.
"I am quite happy to unveil this new technology, as this equipment will assist us in reducing the time we have to wait before our patients get their TB results.”
Healthcare gets smart
A pilot project is also being introduced in KwaZulu-Natal for health workers to use smartphones to collect patient information.
"We have chosen to start here, in eThekwini, because this district has the highest [amount of] TB cases in the country, but we know the problem is national and we, therefore, have to take a national approach in our response to this challenge," said Motsoaledi.
According to Claudio Marra, of the University Research Corporation, an American NGO working with the department, Google Earth would be used to locate patients' homes with the address the patients had given the health facility.
A health worker with a smartphone, equipped with an electronic TB register, would then be deployed to the patient's address.
“When the health worker gets there, he/she would be able to send all the patients' information immediately to the department's server,” explains Marra.
According to Marra, the new technology would facilitate the centralisation of patient information as the homes of those awaiting their results and those on treatment will all be marked on the system.
According to a statement issued by the Department of Health, SA is among three countries in the world with a high burden of TB, a matter that has been identified as critical in reducing the country's disease burden.
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