Council clarifies TB data
The Minerals Council South Africa has provided updated tuberculosis (TB) data, following the publication of an article by Reuters titled ‘Africa’s miners face new TB threat as pandemic disrupts treatment’, published on October 26.
The council said in a statement on October 29 that it wanted to provide updated data in response to the outdated data in the article.
“There are 2 500 to 3 000 TB cases reported per 100 000 mineworkers in Southern Africa, according to the World Bank, a rate ten times higher than what the World Health Organisation classified as an epidemic energy. Miners have a three times higher chance of getting TB than the average person,” the article stated.
The council noted that this data attributed to the World Bank was outdated.
It cited data from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, where its yearly report for the 2018/19 financial year showed that, in 2018, 474 429 employees out of a total of 493 054 employees were screened for TB and 2 066 cases were diagnosed.
It noted that this translates into a case finding rate of 0.4%, or 400 cases per 100 000.
These findings are aligned to the council’s own reporting system for members, where, since 2016, TB incident rates have been in decline, it asserted.
It indicated that its data demonstrates a significant and consistent improvement over past decades, with the TB incidence rate in the mining industry now lower than the national average.
The council supported the article’s assertion of the need to focus on TB as a threat to the health and safety of mineworkers, even during the pandemic.
It highlighted the Masoyise Health Programme – a multistakeholder initiative led by the council to reduce the impact of occupational and other health threats.
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