Pretoria - Three thousand health workers countrywide will be trained in tuberculosis (TB) management to help strengthen TB control.
Tabling the department's R21.5 billion budget for the 2010/11 financial year on Tuesday, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said concrete and clear strategies have been developed in each province to strengthen TB control programmes.
The country's target is to increase the TB cure rate from the current 64 percent to 85 percent by 2014/15.
During this financial year, Motsoaledi said the department will expand its TB Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) programme by training 2 500 community health workers as DOT supporters.
"This will assist in reducing the defaulter rate of TB patients from the current 8.5 percent to less than 5.5 percent by 2012/13," Motsoaledi said.
Using social mobilisation as a key strategy to strengthen TB control, the department, working together with the Desmond Tutu TB centre and other development partners, has developed a social mobilisation campaign called Kick TB 2010.
Motsoaledi said the campaign builds on the excitement generated by the 2010 FIFA World Cup and aims to help to combat TB and the stigma associated with it, by linking it with soccer.
"The campaign will target approximately 250 000 learners who will be drawn from diverse schools and backgrounds across all nine provinces to be 'agents' for TB control and management.
"Each participating learner will receive a specially designed soccer ball with TB appropriate messages that will educate and inform the community about TB, its symptoms and treatment," he said.
