Facing Deportation

In addition to his indeterminate affliction, Mthandazo Sibanda of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, who is resident in Mahalapye, has found his name on the list of persona non grata in Botswana after being tested for HIV/AIDS and told he had the dreaded multi drug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis.

In his precarious circumstances, the ailing Zimbabwean man on Friday appealed to the Monitor by phone to help investigate his predicament. At his bedside at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, this newspaper learnt that the ailing man was first told he had TB at the Mahalapye Primary Hospital in August last year. But by December, 29-year old Sibanda's prognosis had apparently deteriorated because a review of his condition had shown that he was failing to respond to RHZE treatment for the dreaded MDR-TB he had been on.