About us
Who we are
On 22 April 2002, Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Prize-winning former president of South Africa, announced a five-year agreement between his foundation and Sanofi Aventis to help combat the widespread incidence of tuberculosis in South Africa, through the formation of Nelson Mandela Aventis Project for Combating TB also known as TBFREE
TBFREE is registered as a Section 21 Company under the South African law. This innovative public-private partnership is intended to help improve TB detection and treatment rate by:
- Increasing tuberculosis awareness and compliance
- Enabling people affected by tuberculosis to be treated through DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy Short-Course) strategy.
Building an infrastructure to educate healthcare professionals, communities and patients about the need to ensure consistency in treatments is central to the efforts of TBFREE.
Our goal
To increase tuberculosis awareness and the compliance with the TB regime by establishing TBFREE centres and training DOT supporters through out South Africa
The objective of TBFREE is to increase TB case detection and patient cure rates especially in those areas of South Africa most affected by this highly contagious yet curable disease.
TBFREE supports and is aligned with the South African National Tuberculosis Control Programme and the WHO targets of a 70% case detection rate, a 85% cure rate and an interruption rate of less than 5%.
To operationalize TBFREE and realize this ambitious goal, the project partners have established the Nelson Mandela Aventis Project for Combating TB. TBFREE is both the name and the vision of a joint initiative and project being undertaken to improve the health situation of people with tuberculosis in South Africa.
Our vision
A TBFREE South Africa
Our mission
To contribute to the reduction of TB morbidity and mortality and its consequential socio-economic impact in South Africa through:
- Improved patient awareness
- Compliance with treatment
How?
TBFREE has an established centre in each of the nine provinces to provide the infrastructure needed to expand patient access to information about the disease, their own progress and most importantly, to ensure patient compliance with treatment.
By providing Health and Welfare SETA (Sector Education and Training Authority) accredited training to dedicated DOT
Supporters; TBFREE is ensuring the proper implementation of the DOTS strategy as well as access to information about
tuberculosis.
Training sessions are conducted in and around communities to increase accessibility. In addition, mobile units are deployed to support the nine TBFREE centres and provide training in outlying areas where there is a high incidence of tuberculosis.
