Our province has one of the highest counts of TB and HIV in the world, which is why a group of white coats traveled to Nkobongo last Friday.
They are part of a non-profit research organisation called THINK (TB and HIV Investigative Network of KZN) and visited the Nkobongo Resource Centre to do a TB campaign.
Cherry Armstrong is the project manager at THINK, which is located in Durban, and has been involved in clinical research for the last 15 years.
“The organisation consists of more than 30 experienced staff members, who are responsible for conducting clinical trials, observational studies and research,” said Armstrong.
She said THINK is currently conducting phase two and phase three clinical trials aimed at improving treatment of TB and HIV patients, including drug resistant TB.
“KZN suffers from the highest number of drug resistant TB cases per population, and was the scene for the ‘XDR TB outbreak’ in 2005, leading to the revelation of extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB.”
One of the most important aspects of their work is education.
“We started this initiative with school going children at Nkobongo Resource Centre, to make children aware of the importance of testing for TB and HIV and to conduct a free testing clinic for them.”
While the doctors and nurses were setting up in the hall of the centre, the tiny tots on their plastic motorbikes sang cheerfully, while curiously looking at what was going on.
A total of 26 children were screened for TB at the centre and enjoyed a fun, entertaining lesson about the prevalent bacterial infection.
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