Tucked away outside Cape Town, Khayelitsha is a township that is home to about half a million people. Many families in the area share small corrugated zinc houses with limited access to basic services such as clean water and sanitation. It is in such areas that diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) spread rapidly.
According to Dr Anja Reuter from Doctors without Borders (MSF), there are about 170 to 200 cases of rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (RR-TB) per year in this area, with 70% co-infected with HIV. Rifampicin is a key drug in the treatment of drug-susceptible forms of TB. When people are resistant to it, they have to be treated with drugs with a less favourable side effect profile than the standard ones. Resistant strains of TB can be transmitted from one person to another.
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