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I was told I had the flu

Nkosi Ntobeng’s story.

I moved to Johannesburg in search of a job. After two months of searching for jobs, I wasn’t feeling well.

My chest hurt, I coughed a lot, and I lost my appetite. I went to the clinic and got a sputum test but was told I had the flu. I was given medicine and sent home, but I came back after a week because I wasn’t getting better. Antibiotics were given to me because the nurse thought I had bronchitis.

Things got worse for me, so I chose to move back to my hometown in rural Limpopo. Because my symptoms were worse than ever, I got extremely depressed. I lost 20 kgs and could barely breathe. My aunt called a community health worker who went with me to a bigger district hospital about 60 km from where I lived. I got x-rays here. A chest x-ray showed a small thing that wasn’t right in my right lung. I was again told I had pneumonia, spent two days in the hospital, and then was sent home.
But after a month, I was even sicker and went back to the district hospital. A second chest x-ray showed that the small spot in my right lung was more visible and looked more like a lung mass. I was sent for more tests because the “pneumonia” no longer looked like pneumonia. In the winter of 2015, I was told I had lung TB and then multidrug-resistant TB (MDR TB).

Not only is TB hard for the person who has it, but it’s also hard for their family and the people in their community. I thought my family had it worse than I did at times when I had TB. I lost my short-term memory, and it was hard for my parents to see me get weak and unpredictable. Even though I knew what shame meant, this is when I learned how it feels. TB had a “dirty” feel to it. Some people said that I drank and smoked and even that I had promiscuous sex.

Beaulah, the healthcare worker, explained to the community that TB is airborne and not sexually transmitted. You also can’t get it from smoking and drinking. I faced stigma for the first time in my life. At first, I had to take 28 pills every day. I spent two weeks in the district hospital and then was moved to the neighbourhood clinic to make sure that I took my treatment correctly.

I am alive today because of the local healthcare worker, Beaulah, who made sure that I was diagnosed correctly. Because of my late diagnosis, I became severely ill. I’m sure I would have died if my diagnosis came a week later. I keep this photo as a reminder of my long journey with TB. I am healthy today because I persisted with my treatment, and I know that I can spread the news of how important early diagnosis of TB is.”

Marking World TB Day 2024 in South Africa

According to World Health Organisation (WHO) data, an estimated 55,000 individuals in South Africa died from tuberculosis (TB) in 2023, while around 280,000 were infected with the disease. The results show that South Africa is fulfilling its objectives of lowering TB cases but not reducing TB fatalities.