Page 91 - SAMRC Annual Report 2023-24

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Tuberculosis
Platform

Platform director:
Prof. Martie van der Walt

Prioritising responsive research Equitable capacity development
through impactful interventions for empowering communities

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to read Chest Every year in March, the world commemorates World
X-rays for diagnosis of pulmonary Tuberculosis (TB). TB Day in celebration of the day, when in March
A person that has TB will usually present with any of 1822, Robert Koch discovered that TB is caused by
these symptoms: weight loss, chronic cough, night a bacterium. With this knowledge in hand physicians
sweats, and tiredness. The nurse will then collect a and scientists could develop vaccines and drugs to
sputum sample which is sent to NHLS for investigation treat the disease. For the March 2024 celebration,
by GeneXpert (GXP). The test will determine if there the TB Platform staff and post-graduate students
are TB organisms in the sputum or not. It was always visited a primary school to talk to learners, parents
and teachers about TB, a disease that has killed
known that some people with TB may not have the more than 50 000 people in South Africa in 2022.
typical signs and symptoms of TB (asymptomatic
disease), and will not be picked up with the GXP, or Over the years, the platform's TB celebration events
other tests. It has also become evident that people have taken several forms but for 2024, we choose
with asymptomatic disease are a huge driver of to reach out to primary school learners to instil in
disease and in order to fight TB, we will have to them from a young age an interest in science. We
proactively seek them out and initiate treatment. integrated the outreach with the Platform's social
responsibility initiative of the past two years, a
AI tools are much more able to detect small or early project for which we collected plastic bottle caps to
abnormalities in the lung, and give an answer of how be donated to civil society for recycling. The school
likely it is TB. AI is as sensitive as a radiologist to had been collecting caps to go towards a wheelchair
pick up these abnormalities but a medical doctor for one of their disabled learners. By using the bottle
or a nurse without training to look for TB, will miss caps project integrated into the World TB celebration
many probable TB cases. AI tools will then give an we showed learners that science is not something
answer, while with the human reader Chest X-ray being done behind closed laboratory doors, but that
(CXR) image is first referred to a radiologist and SAMRC scientists also use their work to reach out to
depending on their availability there may be a delay the communities we serve. The feedback from the
before the result is available. For CXR services to be school was excellent as we integrated career choices
available to diagnose TB, the clinic/hospital should with social responsibility approaches.
have CXR equipment, a radiographer to take the Science for creating a
image and a trained medical doctor or radiologist
available on-site to read the images. The latter healthier society
requirements make CXR as a tool very expensive. The Tuberculosis Platform started a social
It should be available across all areas but people in responsibility initiative four years ago by collecting
rural areas may benefit more than those in urban. plastic bottle caps with the intention of donating it

SAMRC ANNUAL REPOR T 2023-24 89