Thanks for this opportunity cde Russell Rensburg, the chairperson of this session.
Good morning Comrades and Colleagues gathered this morning. All protocols observed.
The CSF TB Task Team role is to ensure no person in South Africa dies from TB. For this to happen, we must advocate for change on how we do things as we respond collectively as Civil society working with government and the private sector.
We are better together, working and walking side by side.
We are waging a struggle against TB and our rallying call is that we must do to TB what we have and continue to do to COVID-19.
The war against TB will be won through POLITICAL LEADERSHIP at national, Provincial, district, local, ward, street and household levels by government, Civil Society, labour, and private sector.
At the Apex of this political leadership is the resolve by civil society that will play an advocacy role that places SANAC at the centre of responding to TB with involvement of relevant government departments (NOT ONLY NDOH), private sector and labour.
Our advocacy is based on the fulfilment of the following policy tools:
- Commitments made by President Ramaphosa who in 2018 attended and presented the South African position that formed part of the 2018 UN High Level Meeting on TB.
- Finalization and implementation of the South African TB-Multisectoral Accountability Framework (TB-MAF).
- Fulfilment of the call by the PLHIV Sector and SANAC CSF for TB to be declared a public health emergency.
- The operationalisation of the South African TB Recovery Plan that we as civil society participated in its development. We will not just sit and wait for government to implement this plan; we commit to contribute to its implementation.
- We are contributors to the National Strategic Plan on HIV, TB & STIs 2023 – 2028 (NSP 2023 – 2028) and our contributions are to ensure that TB is at the centre of this NSP 2023 – 2028.
At the SANAC CSF TB TASK TEAM meeting with the Deputy President and Minister of Health on 18 March 2022, we made the following 14 demands as key basic minimum actions that must guide the implementation of the South African TB Recovery Plan:
- Finding missing people with TB and linking them to care.
- Implement the Test & Treat approach to test all high-risk groups for TB.
- Release the updated TB Preventive Therapy (TPT) guidelines and once released (which has happened), ensure that they are implemented with speed.
- To ensure implementation of TPT Guidelines, we must use all our might (political, social, economic & otherwise) to ensure affordable pricing for 3HP.
- Update CHWs’ scope of work to reflect their leadership role in implementing an integrated TB, HIV and COVID-19 response.
- Reduce TB stigma by ensuring that all stigmatising and discriminatory language, behaviour and processes should be actively removed at the national and provincial Departments of Health.
- NDoH must ensure Health worker safety.
- TB Budgets should be aligned with implementation of the TB Recovery plan.
- Information is power; therefore, we must develop public dashboards for TB at national, provincial and district levels including TB diagnoses and deaths.
- Strengthen communication and social mobilisation with greater involvement of civil society actors as implementers.
- Implement the Multisectoral Accountability Framework for TB (MAF TB) with meaningful involvement of civil society and TB Ambassadors.
- The TB TWG of SANAC must be reconfigured to provide for a stronger voice for civil society. This should be through elevating the CSF TB Task Team Chairperson and the NDOH NTP Chief Director to be the Co-Chairpersons of the SANAC TB TWG.
- The TB TWG through its Co-Chairpersons and the SANAC CEO should provide the status of TB response at the SANAC Plenary meetings.
- Lastly, the new NSP 2023 – 2028 must place TB at the centre and not just as an after-thought.
Let me remind you that at the start of this 7th TB Conference we as the Civil Society Forum, we made a demand for 5 key issues should form part of the resolutions from this TB Conference which we stated as follows:
- Invest in meaningful engagement of TB affected communities and civil society at all levels;
- Make real time TB data available for decision making at all levels;
- Scale up TB preventive therapy with 3HP available for all eligible people including PLHIV and close contacts;
- NDOH to rapidly fund and implement Global Fund TB grant to support the TB Recovery Plan – it has already been delayed by 6 months and must be resolved with the urgency it deserves;
- Implement the multisectoral accountability framework for TB (MAF-TB)
As I conclude, on behalf of the civil society collective I call on government to ensure that it removes the beaurocratic blockages that have been put in place to deny adolescent and young people to access services in schools because of memorandum of understanding that is not in place due to the conditions that the Department of Basic Education has put in place for the Primary Reciepients of the Global Fund grant. For the period April 2022 – March 2025, the Global Fund has invested $560 million in South Africa after South Africa pledged $10 million in the last Replenishment. Denying services to young people is akin denying treatment to citizens who daily die because of our inability to implement the TB Recovery Plan.
We have an opportunity to bring about change and that time is NOW.
MABALANE MFUNDISI
CHAIRPERSON
CSF TB TASK TEAM