Tuberculosis is a scar for any nations around the world. If statistics are to be believed, around 88 of every 100,000 people in Korea were diagnosed with TB in 2009. With the mortality rate rising, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made an appeal to control the diagnose rate to OECD average of 17.7 per 100,000.

In order to address the serious issue, a national Health Counseling and Testing (HCT) campaign was launched in the Western Cape to provide early screening for TB. The shocking result has unveiled that out of nine million South Africans screened for HIV; almost 3 million people were screened for TB.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the poor result if the HCT, Head of the TB programme in the national Health Department, Dr. David Mametja admitted that the team has failed to address the serious issue of TB effectively.

Digging into the matter, Dr. Nono Simelela, Chief Executive Officer of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), found that most of the members performing tests were not clear about other tests they have to perform on the people coming for HIV test.

Moreover, Dr. David Mametja claimed that the entire program should be restructured so that the target of putting 6,00,000 people on TB preventative therapy called IPT can be achieved within a time frame of June of this year.