More people die from TB than any other curable infectious disease in the world. Every day, more than 20 000 people develop active TB and 5 000 die from the disease worldwide. One third of the world’s population is infected with the TB bacillus.
South Africa is among the nine countries in the world with the most worrying TB statistics. It has reached epidemic proportions in some parts of the Western Cape.
In some of the districts in the Metro area, one out of every 100 people gets TB per year.