Early in 2015, the South African Health Minister and Chair of the Stop TB Partnership Coordinating Board, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, announced that he was introducing 100% regular screening for tuberculosis for all inmates in South African prisons, as well as for their family members. The decision is significant given that rates of tuberculosis are considerably higher in prisons than within the general population.
In September of this year, The Union took a small group of South African and international journalists to visit Pollsmoor Prison on the outskirts of Cape Town in South Africa to observe the newly introduced South African screening policy. Pollsmoor was chosen because it was the prison where Nelson Mandela himself contracted tuberculosis while an inmate there for much of the 1980s.
The media responded by writing articles that appeared in The Guardian, Mail & Guardian, SABC News and elsewhere.
Click here to view a film about the issue and the media visit: Key populations: Shedding light on TB in prison