Mahlelebe champions TB awareness after conquering three-year battle

Ntsoaki Motaung

A 24-year-old Thato Mahlelebe from Mphaki, Tšitsong village in the Quthing district, has taken a bold step to become a champion for Tuberculosis (TB) awareness.

This comes after Mahlelebe completed her three-year battle with the disease, a journey that began in 2021 when she first started experiencing symptoms.

Diagnosed with TB in early 2023, Mahlelebe spent a year struggling to identify the cause of her health issues.

“It was in 2021 when I had signs of TB, but they were mild symptoms—sweating and occasional coughing—that I thought I could live with,” she recalled. “They would come and go, so I didn’t see the need to go to the clinic.”

As her condition worsened, Mahlelebe began experiencing shortness of breath, prompting her to visit a health centre where she was misdiagnosed with asthma and given medication.

Thinking she had recovered, her health seemed stable until July 2022 when she unexpectedly lost her voice. Still, Mahlelebe delayed seeking help until December 2022, when she finally visited Mphaki Health Centre.

There, she was asked to provide a sputum sample, and by January 2023, she was diagnosed with TB. “When I got the call and was told I had TB, I started treatment immediately,” she said.

For the first two weeks, Mahlelebe’s treatment progressed without issue. However, her health took a turn for the worse by the third week.

“My feet became swollen, my whole body ached, and I had to rely on my mother for almost everything—even bathing. I also became much darker in complexion,” she shared.

Despite her worsening condition, Mahlelebe often reassured her mother, downplaying her suffering to ease her worries.

Mahlelebe completed her six-month treatment in July 2023 and is now leading a healthy life. Reflecting on her illness, she suspects her exposure to harsh chemicals while working in an orchard in Cape Town, South Africa, may have contributed to her infection.

“We worked without masks, and many of us had flu-like symptoms, but TB never crossed our minds,” she explained.

Her personal battle with TB inspired Mahlelebe to become a TB champion in her community. She now educates people about the importance of testing, TB symptoms, and the importance of treatment. “I share my experience with others, and they seem to understand because I’ve lived through it,” she said.

Though various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Health, are working to combat TB, Mahlelebe notes that many people still lack awareness about the disease and how to protect themselves.

The Ministry’s National TB Programme recently announced that, as part of a campaign started in March, they successfully traced 937 TB patients, with 928 of them enrolled in treatment.

However, the ministry estimates that 15,000 Basotho fell ill with TB in 2022, though only 6,601 cases were identified. Dr. Llang Maama, the programme’s manager, emphasized the ongoing efforts to find the “missing” TB patients who remain undetected by the system.

Meanwhile, global efforts to end the TB epidemic are gaining momentum. During the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on TB, world leaders approved a Political Declaration that sets ambitious targets for the next five years.

These include reaching 90 percent of people with TB prevention and care services, using rapid testing as the primary diagnostic tool, providing social benefits to all TB patients, licensing a new TB vaccine, and closing funding gaps for TB implementation and research by 2027.

With the support of these global and national initiatives, Mahlelebe is hopeful that her work as a TB advocate will contribute to the fight against the disease in her community and beyond.

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