ABOUT 700 people died from tuberculosis-related infections in Namibia, while over 8 800 new infections were recorded in 2017.
Deputy health minister Juliet Kavetuna disclosed these statistics on Tuesday during the launch of the parliamentary TB caucus in Windhoek.
She said of the 8 800 new infections recorded last year, 800 were of children under the age of 14.
Although the TB infection rate was 3% lower than the 2016 figures, Kavetuna said the rate was still a cause for concern.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) currently rates Namibia in the top 30 high TB burden countries in the world, with estimates of 446 cases per 100 000 people since 2016.
Kavetuna added that the alarming number of TB cases highlights the need for increased attention and focus on addressing the disease in the country, especially this time when "international financial support for TB programmes is declining".
"For our small population, 700 people is far too many deaths from one disease. This will have a devastating impact across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region towards achieving the World Health Organisation's End TB Strategy by 2035. Namibia is also negatively affected," she said.
The deputy minister added that although progress has been made in the fight against TB in the country, well-known correlating factors such as "low incomes, poor living conditions and malnutrition" also need to be addressed by the government to end the epidemic.
"We are also mindful that TB remains a close ally of HIV, and we cannot stop these two epidemics by addressing only one of them. Therefore, 2018 should be recorded as a watershed year when our politicians joined other lawmakers around the world via the Global TB Caucus," she noted.
Apart from these worrying statistics and heart-rending stories from Namibia, Kavetuna said about 37 000 people die from TB in the SADC region every year.
Globally, more than 10 million people had active TB in 2016, of which 6,2 million were men, 3,2 million women, and half-a-million children.
A total of 1,7 million deaths were attributed to TB worldwide in 2016.
The Global TB Caucus is an international network for political representatives with the aim collectively of ending the TB epidemic in the world.
The caucus is currently present in more than 130 countries in the world.
The chairperson of the Namibian parliamentary caucus, Elma Dienda, who also disclosed that she was a TB survivor, said the TB Caucus was intended to raise awareness about the epidemic among politicians, "so that they step up their advocacy efforts which are imperative to ending the scourge".
"We should be able to make sure that every patient, regardless of their social status, has access to a quick, accurate diagnosis and high-quality treatment to prevent the further spread of the disease, and even death," she added.
WHO country representative, Charles Sagoe-Moses, stated that although Namibia has been commended for its best practices in enabling access and social protection for patients with tuberculosis, the country needs to sustain domestic funding towards the fight against the epidemic, "particularly as external resources dwindle".
He said the WHO will continue to provide technical assistance to Namibia for the conduct of a TB prevalence study "to provide more accurate estimates of the burden of this disease in the country".
