According to the report of the World Health Organization (WHO) presented on Wednesday, the amount of multi-drug and extreme medicine resistant strains of TB in South Africa was currently unknown.
"We know that there are quite a lot of MDR and XDR TB, even though we don’t know the amount," informed Dr Fabio Scano, a tuberculosis specialist from the WHO.
Scano has been cooperating with the government for nearly two-year period in South Africa in order to provide technical support and advice in the struggle against the illness.
A marathon, not a sprint
"There are a lot of interventions underway, however we have yet to see the findings… the struggle against TB is a marathon, not a sprint," he explained.
There was much ignorance concerning the extent of the illness in other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, according to the information from a health department official.
"So far, South Africa has been the only country (in the SADC region) that has the capacity and the capability of for testing XDR TB," explained the deputy director-general in the health department, Nthari Matsau.
Acting Health Minister Jeff Radebe explained that it was significant for TB patients to stick to their treatment.
According to the statistics of health department, 237 of 352 XDR TB patients recognized so far, have died.
