Deadly strains on TB now in South Africa

This is bad stuff and although you've no doubt read of it in the daily media, FleetWatch urges the trucking industry to take this extremely seriously. We're talking about the new strains of tuberculosis which are rapidly spreading across the world and which, according to the World Health Organisation, are virtually untreatable using available drugs. The new strains are known as extreme drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB. They have killed people in several countries, including the US and Eastern Europe and have now been found in Africa. This is really bad news as, according to some medical experts, they could put an end to all hope of containing the AIDS pandemic. TB is an airborne illness spread through coughing or sneezing that gradually destroys the lungs and can kill by causing multiple organ failure or bleeding in the lungs. TB is a big killer of people with AIDS and, as is well known, SA has one of the highest number of HIV infections in the world with an estimated 5-million of our 43-million population infected. It is also well known that the truck driving fraternity is a high risk target for HIV infection. Our driver ranks have already been thinned drastically from the disease and now comes XDR-TB. 

And if you think it's not too bad and is not your problem, please don't think that way. The head of the World Health Organisation's TB resistance team, Paul Nunn, has been quoted in the New York Times as saying that the situation is extremely serious. There are 9-million cases of TB in the world and the WHO estimates 2 percent of them - or 180 000 - could be XDR-TB. "This is raising the spectre of something that we have been worried might happen for a decade - the possibility of virtually untreatable TB," Dr Nunn said. The report went on to state that even in the US, which has the best medicines available, a third of those diagnosed with XDR-TB have died. In March, the US Centres for Disease Control registered 64 cases of XDR-TB - 21 of those ended in death. 

And here's the crunch! The bad news is that it has already reached our shores. It was reported at the time of writing that 53 patients from rural areas in KwaZulu Natal had been diagnosed with the XDR-TB strain. Of those 53 patients, 52 died within an average of 25 days. In addition, scientists did tests on people with tuberculosis in a rural area studying 544 patients. They found 221 that had TB strains against which the two most common drugs, rifampicin and isoniazid, had no effect. All the XDR-TB patients who could be tested were found to be HIV positive. As we now go to press, the first case outside of KwaZulu Natal has been discovered in Johannesburg where a Gauteng woman was diagnosed with XDR-TB. We just hope that by the time you read this, many more have not been found - although it doesn't look good. I urge all transport operators to stay up to date with this new killer disease and to be on high alert for anyone in your company who is even mildly suspected of having TB. Contact the health authorities in your area for further details.

Another sickness spreading
I don't know how many times FleetWatch has warned the industry not to take up-front price as a prime consideration in the purchase decision. Just last month we published an article titled 'Rim Robbers' in which out technical correspondent Dave Scott wrote of 'grey' rims that were failing on vehicles. Now, as I sit in the airport lounge about to take off for the Hannover show - complements of DaimlerChrysler - we read on the front page of the Sunday Times how the Russian-originated GAZelle vehicles are bombing out all over the place. A small round-the-block test drive at the time of the introduction of these vehicles didn't impress FleetWatch at all - and that was on basics like ride-comfort and interior appointment. Just the basics. However, we now read that 500 of these vehicles have been recalled for a host of problems. The buyers are 'gatas' with some of them experiencing problems after driving a mere couple of kilometres from the delivery point. "I had problems with it within the first 10kms to 15 kms. The propshaft broke," said one of the unfortunate buyers. The fact that the taxi recapitalisation programme is intended to enhance road safety and improve the taxi parc out there takes on an ironic twist when it turns out that the very vehicles intended to replace the ancients of the current fleet are, as the Sunday Times headline blares out: "death traps".

I'm not too sure who to trust anymore. The fact that a name like McCarthy Holdings, part of the Bidvest Group, is a partner in this venture, leant enormous credibility to the venture when it was introduced. And the fact that Santaca Trading, an arm of the South African National Taxi Association, also had a shareholding finger in the pie, gave that extra bit of 'credibility comfort'. After all, surely an organisation like this would not link up with anything that could harm - even kill - its members and the passengers they carry. However, that credibility has gone to the wind given that no real durability tests were conducted on the vehicles to ascertain their suitability to South Africa market conditions prior to their introduction. Sure, the SABS conducted its inspections for homologation - but this was on one vehicle only and does not substitute for professional, on-the-road durability tests that are essential before introducing vehicles onto our market. It's a mess and is one that McCarthy, Santaca and the Russians are not going to easily get out of. What it proves is that the 'sickness' of companies trying to introduce vehicles into our market based on low pricing is spreading. If a company like McCarthy can be hoodwinked, then we need to be more cautious of new introductions. FleetWatch knows that next year we will see a host of Chinese trucks coming in. McCarthy is one of the groups that has announced it will do so. There are others. Let this be a lesson to all. Don't let any of those vehicles touch our roads without proper tests having being done for their suitability to our market conditions. And if it means that modifications have to be made that will add to the price tag, then so be it. Don't let us plunge this market into the shambles that the GAZelle has turned into. Eeeeish!

Patrick O'Leary
Managing Editor