While the Mpumalanga Legislature has successfully relaunched the Tuberculosis (TB) Caucus today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is concerned that the Provincial Department of Health (DoH) is struggling to trace thousands of patients who should start antiretroviral treatment, and many more who have defaulted.
The DA will submit parliamentary questions to Mpumalanga Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, asking her to explain why her department is failing to track and trace the thousands of patients who should start antiretroviral treatment, and those who should be reintroduced to treatment after defaulting. We also want the MEC to explain why her department is failing to meet their own set targets for HIV and TB treatment and management.
In February 2025, the Mpumalanga DoH joined the national campaign called Closing the GAP, which was aimed at tracking and tracing all the people who had tested positive and were not receiving treatment. The campaign also aimed to track the patients who defaulted from their antiretroviral treatment and could not be found. At that time, the Mpumalanga DoH had 134 243 patients who needed to be engaged or re-engaged and retained in care.
According to the recent 2025/2026 Fourth Quarter Report of the Mpumalanga DoH; 15-months later, they have only managed to close the gap by finding only 72 124 (54%) out of the 134 243 missing patients. This means that 62 199 people who need antiretroviral treatment in Mpumalanga, are still unaccounted for since last year February. The department has since extended the deadline to find them to December 2026.
Currently, HIV/AIDS and TB are ranked as the leading causes of death in Mpumalanga, and the DA believes that the Mpumalanga DoH is failing to meet its prevention and treatment targets due to weak initiatives and campaigns, which are too rigid and cannot accommodate change to the needs of patients.
The DA believes that Mpumalanga Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini and her department, need to put all the resources they have to trace the missing patients, and to make sure that those who have already started antiretrovirals stay on treatment and not default. It is common knowledge that antiretroviral patients are more likely to develop TB if they default on their treatment.
It is more concerning that the department’s 2025/2026 Fourth Quarter Report, also reveals that they failed to meet their treatment and prevention targets for both HIV/AIDS and TB for the 2025/2026 financial year. Out of the 95% of adults who tested HIV positive and began treatment in 2025/2026, the department only managed to retain 70% of the patients.
Similarly, the department is also lagging behind in terms of initiating antiretroviral treatment to children who have tested HIV positive. In the 2025/2026 financial year, the department targeted to put 849 children on treatment but only managed 341. They also stated that they lack a system to follow up on HIV-exposed children at 10 weeks, 6 months, and 18 months, resulting in late identification of children who are HIV positive.
On positive note, the DA is happy that the Tuberculosis (TB) Caucus was relaunched in the Mpumalanga Legislature today. This gives hope to the fight against TB for the year ahead. But we are also concerned that the Mpumalanga DoH has stated that they are not doing enough to trace children under 5 who need TB treatment. They also reported that their targeted universal testing and treatment (TUTT) implementation for TB, is also inadequate, which has led to the failure of meeting the treatment and prevention of TB targets.