The Stop TB Partnership, World Bank, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria are organising a large collaborative workshop on combating TB in the Mining sector in South Africa. The workshop titled ‘A Collaborative Effort to Tackle Complex Health Service Delivery Challenges: Addressing Tuberculosis in the  Mining Sector in Southern Africa’ will take place in Cape Town on September 30th.
South Africa has half a million mine workers, employed in approximately 2,000 mines and quarries across the country. Mine workers in South Africa have the highest TB incidence in the world estimated at 3000 per 100,000 people. These numbers far exceed the World Health Organization’s threshold for a health emergency: 250 cases of TB per 100,000 people.
The challenge of TB in the mining sector in southern Africa has persisted for over 100 years due to a combination of complex factors which include: cross border migration of mine workers which makes case finding and referral difficult, different health care systems and protocols across countries, regulation of the mining industry by different government ministries, economic and socio-cultural dimensions which are all extremely difficult to coordinate. Many attempts to solve this service-delivery challenge have not been successful and its effective resolution requires a new way of thinking.
Highly affected countries are leading a novel regional approach, with the support of the World Bank Group, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Stop TB Partnership to bring about profound change in the trajectory of TB in southern Africa in the next five years. A full day capacity building workshop is being hosted with the aim of sharing insights and exchanging knowledge from this innovative regional approach and engaging key stakeholders on how to successfully apply the Science of Service Delivery to address this multi-sector, multi-country challenge. Panel discussions and group work will be facilitated by various high level stakeholders including ministers of health and minerals, policy makers, mining industry executives, and development partners.
RESULTS UK will be attending the meeting to represent civil society and ensure full participation and representation from affected community partners.