Madame Minister, The Honorable Mayor, Mr. Thabethe, MECs, Distinguished Guests, Members of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. I am pleased to be able to join the Minister, the Department of Health, and the World Health Organization at the launch of South Africa’s extremely important Tuberculosis Medium Term Development Plan. USAID is honored to have joined our South African colleagues and the Royal Dutch TB Organization--known as "KNCV"--in developing this plan.

TB is one of the top killers of adults in this country. And yet TB is curable. So we have worked in partnership with the Government and others to find ways of reaching people in this country with this life-saving message that puts actions to the words. The heart of this TB Plan is the health of South Africans,-and the goal is to bring early diagnosis and treatment to millions of people suffering from Tuberculosis.

South Africa is the only country where USAID supports a specific Tuberculosis program with our funding for infectious diseases. The health threat from TB is serious, and so is the Government’s commitment to change the killing nature of the disease here in South Africa. As South African efforts to fight TB have grown over the past few years, U.S. Government resources to support the fight have grown.

This plan is a landmark achievement in the Government’s leadership in the fight against Tuberculosis. When this Plan is achieved, South Africa stands to move beyond being one of the countries with the highest number of TB cases.

I have recently witnessed the devastating effects of TB on South Africans in the Eastern Cape and other provinces. While visiting projects supported by USAID, I met men and women in hospitals whose illnesses made them too sick to wand and contagious to loved ones. They told me they simply wanted to get better and go home. I also saw the dedication of primary health care staff in clinics and hospitals trying to help them do just that. The implementation of this Plan will enable them to do their jobs even better.

The TB Plan reflects well the focused steps needed to provide access to timely diagnosis and service for people with TB. Since completion of treatment is a major challenge, systems will be put in place in the next three years to increase the number of people who complete treatment and thus help reduce the high death rates caused by TB.

This particular TB Action Plan adds yet another key building block in the development of South Africa’s health infrastructure. USAID will continue to assist in helping establish those other building blocks, particularly the delivery of integrated primary health care services through rural clinics, centers and hospitals. Our assistance will also continue in other areas associated with preventing and treating TB, such as advocacy, strategic development, community-based DOTS (directly observed treatment Short-Course), and TB and HIV/AIDS integration. Our partners will continue to be the Department of Health, universities and many South African non-governmental organizations.

The world can learn from South Africa’s experience of combating TB. One point we will emphasize is this: "Look at the collaborative process South Africa followed to put this TB plan together". The design and development of this Plan has involved virtually every key figure working in the TB world at national and provincial levels, along with universities and NGOs. That’s a powerful team uniting to fight one of the top preventable killers of South Africans. Another strong feature of the Plan is that it recognizes that each region’s unique circumstances and thus each province will prepare strategic and implementation plans specific to the needs of its people.

Tuberculosis in South Africa can be cured. TB should be cured and TB shall be cured. For the sake of South Africans, we will press on together with those life-saving measures that will cure people with TB.

Thank you.