admintreatment after being diagnosed of the disease.
The two who are receiving treatment include a young girl from Tsholotsho area.
In an interview recently, Mat North Provincial TB co-ordinator, Dr Erifas Dhodho, said those under treatment were responding positively. “We have people who have developed the Multi-Drug Resistant tuberculosis,
which does not respond to the treatment regiment we have been using all along, but we have now put them on a new treatment regiment,” said Dr Dhodho.
He said the drugs for the TB strain were available but people needed a longer period of treatment than the ordinary strain.
Patients need to be injected everyday for two months before undergoing a two-year treatment period, which requires people to go to a health centre for observed and monitored treatment.
The existence of the strain in the province has been attributed to the free movement of people between South Africa and Botswana, where the strains has been widely reported.
“There is free movement of people be-tween countries in the region and the province, which has made people susceptible to getting the strain,” he said.
It has also been attributed to people who fail to complete treatment and disappear to either South Africa or Botswana before they are cured, while others seek treatment late.
Those who died either sought treatment late or took longer to respond to the drug.
Online Reporter