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Overflow XDR-TB Patients
Taken To Cape Prisons

By Adriana Stuijt
Exclusive to Rense.com
6-22-7
 
 
Cape Town journalist Vusumuzi Ka Nzapheza reports on June 21 2007 that the number of patients with extremely-drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has more than quadrupled in the Western Cape over the past three months. The local TB-hospital 's isolation ward could not cope with the overflow, and some of these XDR-TB patients were also being placed "in isolation at prisons in the province", according Cape Town city health spokeswoman Faiza Steyn.
 
My personal comment: The journalist had to use three-month- old national health department statistics, however, new updates on the national XDR-TB epidemic have not been released since March by the National Department of Health. No-one in the news media really knows exactly how many have actually died countrywide of the XDR-TB epidemic in SA over the past three months. The Cape town health department in the country which actually provides up-to-date statistics to the news media and keeps the public informed.
 
The Cape Town journalist reports that the specialised, 22-bed isolation ward of the Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital which is used by the Cape Town health department, has no more room for new patients. Cape Town's own local statistics show that since March, 45 new XDR- TB cases have been officially diagnosed in the province and eight XDR-TB patients have since died. In March, there were 10 officially- diagnosed XDR-TB cases in the province, he reports. It takes at least 2 months to diagnose suspected XDR-TB cases.
http:// www.capetimes.co.za/index.php
 
Overflow XDR-TB patients 'in prisons and hospital side-wards'
Cape Town's health department spokeswoman Faiza Steyn told the Cape Times journalist that 'most patients with XDR-TB were admitted as quickly as possible to Brooklyn (Chest Hospital). "At times, patients do have to wait for an (isolation) bed at Brooklyn Chest Hospital. Some patients were treated in side wards at the hospital, while the rest were in isolation at prisons in the province, she said. Treatment was provided for everyone who needed it."
 
Seperate waiting areas in health clinics for suspected TB patients:
City health director Ivan Toms said the department and clinics had implemented steps to reduce the health risk of TB and XDR-TB.
"These include clinic designs to separate waiting areas for TB clients, ensuring good airflow in TB areas, providing masks to coughing TB patients, and respirators for all staff in the TB area," he said.
 
Cape Town has a 79% cure rate for ordinary TB:
"Apart from City Health's excellent progress in reducing the defaulter rate and increasing the cure rate, we have implemented steps to reduce the health risk of TB as well as XDR-TB," said Toms. Indeed in the last quarter of last year, Cape Town achieved its best cure rate of 79 percent for ordinary TB. - the best TB- cure rate on the African continent.
Karin Weyer, director of the TB Research Unit at South Africa's (independent) Medical Research Council, warned that the XDR-TB epidemic 'pointed to the failure of TB control: we have to cure TB first time round and step up drug resistance surveillance now that XDR-TB has emerged."
 
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php? set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20070621011130371C820336
 
Nurse died of XDR-TB, two inmates diagnosed with it at Pollmoor prison, Cape:
Meanwhile only one day earlier, the Cape Argus journalist Norman Joseph reported that his investigation of the 'collapsing health care system at Pollsmoor prison' had discovered that two months ago, one prison nurse had died of XDR-TB, and two inmates with XDR- TB were transferred to TB-hospitals, where one has since died.
 
He also reported that the health-care system at this (crime- syndicate-run) prison has practically collapsed, with its hospital director expelled from his job for refusing to give patients life- saving medicines, and only one nurse available each day to treat up to one-thousand patients during the prison hospital's daily sick-call.
 
LINK: http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php? set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20070618104701176C119063
 
Joseph's report did not mention whether any of the more than 7,000 inmates and 1,250+ staff members (and their families) at this seriously overcrowded prison near Cape Town have since then been tested for the killer-TB strain and how many more of the inmates and staff were sent into quarantined hospitalisation since the nurse's death.
 
This maximum security prison is under the direct control of the Correctional Services ANC-Minister Ngconde Balfour. It was built in 1964 and holds some of South Africa's most dangerous criminals and roughest gangsters -- but also trial-awaiting prisoners. The prison is practically run by crime-syndicate bosses. Gangsterism is a potent feature of Pollsmoor Prison life, and gangs and their leaders run three segregated sections each with 500 to 750 gang- members.
 
View the BBC-documentary about prison life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/1645360.stm
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollsmoor_Prison
 
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php? set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20070618104701176C119063
 
A particularly virulent strain of extremely-drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) was first identified in South Africa in 2003 and has since then been identified as the unique "SA-1" mutation between the TB bacillus and the Human-Immune-Deficiency virus (HIV) which leads to Aids. This strain has contributed greatly to the present epidemic all over the country. Hundreds are already dead of still dying, with the overwhelming number of patients dying within 20 days of contracting this mutant TB+HIV strain.
 
The SA government meanwhile, still has not withdrawn its official policy advice against the enforced isolation of XDR-TB-patients who refuse hospitalisation. Cape Town's health department and others such as the Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital in Rietfontein near Johannesburg are ignoring this unscientific directive. At Sizwe there were at least 168 drug-resistant patients in quarantine including 16 children in April. It's not known what their present situation is - there have been no news releases about it since that time.
See the news clip with DOH deputy director Ms Matsau explaining this policy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz5lI3Hc5Xc
 
With the tourism trade to SA still rising dramatically, and Cape Town's infamous 'sex-tourism' becoming a multi-million industry run by those crime syndicates who are headquartered at Pollsmoor Prison, it's obviously just a matter of time before the first XDR- TB patients with this unique "SA-1" TB+HIV mutant strain start showing up in the rest of the world.
 
It's untreatable due to its mutation with the HIV-Aids virus, and moreover an airborne bacillus which is coughed out by infectious patients in large clouds. (see cartoon below)

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