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Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland On September 25th 2015, countries adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all, as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and ordinary people. Of these 17 goals, the 3rd goal is dedicated to Good Health and Well-being. One of its targets envisages to reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—like cancer—by 2030. It has been more than 1 year since then, but with 8.8 million cancer related deaths in 2015, there does not seem to be any major change towards reduction and prevention of cancers. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about one third of cancer cases are preventable.  Anne Jones , Senior Tobacco Control Expert with t...

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland Leafing through my birthday good wishes from friends, family and foes, on my Facebook, WhatsApp, Tweet, Instagram, Skype and other social media accounts, I realised hundreds of postings were well designed cards, songs, articles about the World AIDS Day commemoration. Companies, churches, schools, governments, non-state actors, groups, individual of every creed, race and religion were gathering and posting pictures and speeches remembering their loved ones lost to HIV/AIDS, those living with HIV and those caring for the sick. It reminded me that some couple of decades ago the 1st of December would have been a very different day for me, characterised by a birthday cake, friends and family gathered, lots of fried chicken, non-stop telephone calls with well wishes. Well there was no Facebook then. But today my birthday wishes are juxtaposed with grim reminders of the devastation caused by the deadly HIV. According to the WHO, in 2015 th...

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland Coming back from the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health held in Liverpool in October 2016, it is time to reflect upon the myriad advancements and debates to better the quality of care for people with TB—shortening the treatment schedule for multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), addressing the otherwise forgotten groups like adolescents, celebrities opening up about having lived with TB, and plenty more on fresh approaches to end the epidemic. An interesting, but not so new aspect crept into every discussion—the socio-economic issues that dampen efforts to stop TB and that begged the question: Are national TB programmes responsible for eradicating poverty to ensure effectiveness of the TB treatment therapy? Speaking with Dr Samson Haumba , the Country Director at the University Research Company in Swaziland, he expressed, “The socio-economic needs of the patient are critical to the intervention. However, the National TB programme b...

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland It is essential that any healthcare program in its advancement does not forget the population for whom it is  developed. At the recent 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health with the theme of ‘Confronting resistance: Fundamentals to innovations’, countries shared interesting food for thought and unique advanced approaches to people focused quality care for innovative management of MDR-TB. For an extended period of time we have had the directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) for TB patients, in which healthcare workers observe patients as they take their medicines. It introduced task shifting, a concept that was first met with hesitancy by mostly healthcare workers and the general population at large. But it remains an internationally recommended highly efficient and cost-effective strategy for TB control. However, noting the increase in the number of patients that need to be directly observed and the limited space to...

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland Final results of a potentially game-changing study on a nine-months treatment regimen for multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) were announced at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. This study  carried out in nine Francophone countries has shown a treatment success rate of 82% with limited adverse side effects - a significant stride towards stopping TB. The study was conducted in Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Cote d’Ivore, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Rwanda. This novel treatment regimen for MDR-TB is a great improvement over the current 24 months (or more) long treatment, which has a treatment success rate of 52%. These encouraging results assume greater significance in the light of the fact that MDR-TB remains a public health crisis. WHO estimates that 580,000 people became sick with TB resistant to at least rifampicin in 2015, of whom 480,000 were diagnosed as having ...

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland Cardio vascular diseases (CVDs) are one of the major chronic ailments that have strongly impacted today’s generation, along with other non communicable diseases (NCDs) like cancer, hypertension and diabetes. Notably, in over 80% of the cases, the diseases are lifestyle related. Small changes in lifestyle practices and choices could effectively minimize risk factors. CVDs include coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, congenital heart disease and deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. As often, the low and medium income countries tend to carry a higher burden of CVD related deaths. This may not necessarily be due to very high incidence of CVDs in these countries, but also due to the weak health systems and weak economies that hinder general populaces from accessing regular medical check-up for early detection and failure to afford the medical care associated with them.  According to the Programme Development Manager at the W...

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland In September 2015 at the United Nations General Assembly, the global leadership marked the historic adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, which replaced the Millennium Development Goals. The 3rd Goal within these 17 SDGs specifically targets the global epidemics of HIV-AIDS, TB, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and commits to end these epidemics by the year 2030. It has been a year since this commitment and there have been notable successes. However, it is still a few years to 2030 and there is still work to be done. HIV & AIDS Indications On the 4th of April 2016, the Executive Director of the Swaziland Emergency Response Council (NERCHA), Mr. Khanya Mabuza noted in an interview with the Times of Swaziland that the HIV infections are down by 50% in Swaziland. This news came with very encouraging statistics, including that while the country once recorded 14,000 AIDS related deaths per year, this figure has now d...