The new government TB dashboard is a step forward for transparency and accountability in South Africa's response to the ancient, but still deadly, disease. It is critical that we use it wisely to boost our testing efforts, argues a group of South Africa's leading TB activists ahead of World TB Day on March 24th.
After years of advocacy by TB survivors, researchers, health workers, community and civil society organisations, South Africa now has a national TB dashboard that posts TB statistics, which everyone can access, including members of the general public. This is a major win for transparency and accountability in the TB response. The National Department of Health deserves to be commended for this.
Many people in South Africa have TB, but are not tested and started on TB treatment. Without treatment, TB transmission will continue (people become non-infectious soon after starting treatment).
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The launch of the dashboard in October 2025 highlights the importance of testing people at risk of TB earlier using targeted strategies under the National Department of Health Strategic Plan (2025-2030). This TB data portal can aid in helping to target TB testing, particularly among high-risk populations. But this depends on how the data are utilised, by whom, where and for what purpose.
This commitment to transparency is not only a policy choice. It is a constitutional imperative. Section 27 guarantees everyone the right of access to information held by the state, particularly where such information is required to exercise or protect other rights, including the right to healthcare.
In the context of TB, clear, disaggregated, and accessible data is essential for communities to understand risks, and drive evidence-based advocacy for testing to hold the health system accountable for delivering comprehensive TB services.
In a country with one of the highest global TB (and HIV) burdens, a collaborative approach responsive to the needs of people is critical. Affected communities, facility managers, district officials, and national policymakers can all now use data to improve services and help secure multi-sectoral support for TB.
The country's TB testing strategy, called Targeted Universal Testing for TB (TUTT), prioritises testing for people considered to be at high risk of TB. This includes close contacts of people with TB disease, people living with HIV, and people who have been treated for TB in the past two years. Testing is recommended in these at-risk groups irrespective of TB symptoms.
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Yet persistent barriers undermine this strategy. Limited community awareness of who qualifies for TB testing, TB stigma, work commitments, transport costs, and overburdened clinics all contribute to missed testing opportunities.
These challenges are reflected in high TB test positivity rates at the primary care and district level, which indicate that many people with TB are only being tested once they already have symptoms.
The new dashboard aligns with South Africa's National TB Recovery Plan and its National Strategic Plan on HIV, TB and STIs (2023-2028), positioning it to increase TB testing among TUTT priority groups, who are the focus of the country's TB response. This commitment was reinforced by the Minister of Health announcing a target to test five million people for TB in a 12-month period from 2025 to 26.
The launch of the TB dashboard in 2025 was also a realisation of the National Digital Health Strategy (2019-2024). This foundational policy prioritised the digitisation of health records, and supported emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence as the cornerstones in the roll out of the TUTT policy and for accountable TB testing in the country.
The new TB dashboard is a game changer. As a visual tool, data is now disaggregated by age, sex and district, providing information for data-driven and targeted universal TB testing strategies in decentralised resource constrained environments.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many South Africans became data watchers, tracking data regularly. That collective civic accountability encouraged behavioural change and influenced policy decisions. TB requires a similar urgency and approach. The dashboard offers us the opportunity to translate online data into action at the community and facility level.
Data informs, people drive outcomes
The first step in capitalising on this new tool would be to strengthen the capacity of facility managers and frontline health workers to use the dashboard. This will support and enable them to regularly engage with relevant TB data and use it to inform action planning. By reviewing dashboard data against testing targets and having posters of TB testing eligibility criteria clearly visible, each facility could strengthen integration of data use into routine clinical workflows.
At community level, local TB champions could be supported to use the data from the dashboard in much the same way as COVID-19 statistics were used. They could share local trends on community radio, in churches, schools, and at community and facility meetings to stimulate discussion on TB risk and the devastating effects of TB in communities and households.
Sustainable change comes from community engagement and collective stewardship. While data informs decisions, it is people who ultimately drive lasting outcomes. As the Treatment Action Campaign has shown in the HIV and TB response through the Ritshidze Community-Led Monitoring project, when communities understand and use data, they can enhance uptake of services and hold the health system accountable.
MUST READ | Ritshidze, South Africa's powerhouse community-led healthcare monitor, is on the brink of shutting down. Experts warn its collapse could unravel years of progress in our clinics just as worrying new data emerges about HIV services.
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A visible TB testing data tool means that information is made accessible, communicated clearly and consistently, and in ways that do not reinforce stigma. Trusted local leaders such as community health workers, clinic committee members, people serving on community structures, TB champions, and TB survivors are a community-based resource in whom investments need to be directed. They can help reach at-risk priority groups.
Assessing the dashboard data is an opportunity to help steer civil society efforts to find and link people into care, as well as holding the health department accountable. Questions such as who is being tested and whether we are testing the right people in the right areas can help guide efforts and make the dashboard a practical resource.
Some civil society representatives already have access to the detailed testing targets and provincial performance records through monthly meetings and through the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) TB Technical Task Team, offering a realistic picture of what is happening on the ground. These data can guide the strategic direction of the TB response. However, to make this information actionable, the feedback loop to and from communities and partner networks is critical.
As Bravo Thompson, a TB Champion from Delft in Cape Town, told us: "This is a really positive and innovative tool that allows civil society and community activists like myself to track TB progress at national, provincial and district level. It gives us the information we need to engage the government more effectively and support accountability when targets are not being met."
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Currently, priority groups are not always being adequately tested, partly because facility-level targets are not well communicated to frontline staff. Facilities need clear, transparent TB testing targets, which are also communicated to the community.
'New opportunities'
Ultimately, the public TB dashboard is a very important step towards greater transparency, impact and equity. Its impact will depend on whether the data is disaggregated by sub-group and facility, linked to targets, and actively used across the health system, by staff and community members capacitated to use it.
The dashboard opens new opportunities for communities, health workers, researchers, government, civil society, TB survivors, and affected households to work together using a shared evidence base. To realise this potential, national and provincial health authorities, districts, and civil society organisations must invest in making the data accessible, understandable, and actionable through training, clear targets, and sustained community engagement. If used intentionally and consistently, the dashboard can help drive the increase in TB testing that South Africa urgently needs. Used wisely, it will be more than a website; it will be part of a multipronged strategy to end TB.
*Schoeman and Giddy are with TB Proof (a local TB advocacy group), Coetzee is with the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, Rensburg is with the TB Accountability Consortium, Best is an independent public health advocate, and Keneilwe Eyde is an independent consultant and doctoral researcher.
Note: Spotlight aims to deepen public understanding of important health issues by publishing a variety of views on its opinion pages. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily shared by the Spotlight editors.
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