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As we commemorate World TB Day tomorrow the Democratic Alliance (DA) would like to give thanks to South Africa's doctors and nurses who devote themselves to helping the sick, and in particular people infected with tuberculosis.

South Africa has one of the biggest TB epidemics in the world. It accounts for over 80% of all notifiable diseases and more than two thirds of our TB cases are directly attributable to HIV/Aids.

The burden of TB on our health system is enormous and yet the health workers at the forefront of combating this epidemic are undervalued by the ANC government.

These doctors and nurses are exposed to the risk of infection, endure sub-standard working conditions and work long hours for poor pay, yet they are treated as dispensable with attention given to grievances only when they threaten to strike.

They are also not supported by a system that allows TB to be successfully combated.

TB is relatively easy to cure. But under apartheid, poorly funded and inadequate health services were directly responsible for the spread of TB across South Africa. The ANC government's efforts over the last 16 years have done relatively little to curb the spreading of the disease.

New Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has himself admitted that a solid primary health care network, which is necessary to successfully prevent TB and treat it quickly when it occurs, has not been put in place, resulting in an extremely expensive curative health system.

The elimination of TB will free up entire hospitals currently burdened by chronic bed and equipment shortages with billions of rands becoming available to treat other diseases.

We need to start by giving health workers the recognision and support they deserve by improving working conditions at hospitals, making the filling of vacancies a priority and increasing training opportunities for new health workers.