‘The fear of the immigration system, the stigma, and loss of jobs, has driven mine workers away from accessing the TB services they need’, this was the statement made by an ex-mine worker during the launch of a ‘TB and the Mines’ partnership project that Swaziland has embarked upon in collaboration with South Africa, Lesotho and Mozambique.

‘I had to choose between being deaf and being dead’, this is what Dalene von Delft, a Medical Doctor from Stellenbosch University in South Africa, said in her testimony at a two-day Southern Africa meeting held recently to strengthen and scale up TB /HIV responses in the workplace. The meet was supported under the TB Care II program by University Research Company in collaboration with USAID. In the meeting, Swaziland, Namibia, South Africa were represented by their government, workers and employers’ organizations working in the field of TB.