Tuberculosis Treatment in The Human Genome Editing Era: Unbundling the Right of Access to Healthcare Services in South Africa

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is both preventable and curable, yet it is the top killer disease in South Africa. In 2018, about 300,000 people in South Africa fell ill with TB and about 63,000 people died of TB. This demonstrates that the incidence of TB in South Africa is far greater than in other continents. This calls for a paradigm shift in the response to fighting the TB epidemic. Specifically, this necessitates promoting access to progressive treatment methods to fight the age-old disease that is still affecting a greater fraction of the South African population. Treating TB with monotherapy has, in most instances, proven to be ineffective. The burden of the TB epidemic as witnessed in South Africa is a compelling reason for alternative treatment options such as human genome editing. The main purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent the legal and policy framework in South Africa enables the government to provide TB treatment to patients using human genome editing. The paper concludes that the right approach to accessing this technology is important because it provides a solid ground to demand access.