The Trouble With TB

Treating tuberculosis – the number one killer disease in South Africa – is an ongoing battle but new drugs are giving people hope.

- Siyabonga Kamnqa

AT FIRST, he ignored the constant coughing and night sweats, thinking they were just signs of a fever that would eventually go away.

But when days passed without any sign of improvement and he started losing weight, he began to suspect the tuberculosis (TB) he’d contracted in prison had come back.

“I lost weight at an alarming rate,” Denzel Smith recalls. “Everyone started telling me to go to the clinic or doctor.”

Which he did – but things were a lot more serious than he thought. After staff conducted tests he was told he had contracted multi­drug­resistant TB (MDR­TB). “When I heard those words I just sat there,” he says. “I froze. I thought my days were numbered. All I could think about was if I’d be around to watch my baby daughter grow up.”

Denzel is now being treated at Parkwood Clinic in Cape Town’s Grassy Park and although he is still frail – his weight dropped from 71 kg to just 50 kg – he is doing well.

“He’s determined to fight this,” says Bonnie Appolis, his MDR­TB counsellor. “From the first day he discovered he had this disease he wanted to find out more about it and how he could beat it. We always stress to our patients that taking their medication is the only solution to beat the disease.”

And there might be more good news for Denzel and others like him: Two separate drug trials in the United States, both involving South African patients, could change the way doctors treat TB and save thousands of lives.