Botšabelo Hospital

Botšabelo Hospital, also known as Lesotho MDR Hospital or Lesotho MDR-TB Hospital, is located in Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho.^[2] The 24-bed facility is a specialty referral hospital treating patients with Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis exclusively.^[1] As of 2020, it was the only hospital in the country accredited to provide comprehensive tuberculosis drug resistant treatment.^[2]

Botsabelo opened as a state hospital, or leprosorium, for patients infected with leprosy in 1914.^[3] The hospital was initially more a detention center, and patients did not receive medicines.^[4] The initial structure was the repurposed accommodations of British soldiers and was built of cheap corrugated sheet metal.^[4]

The hospital was retooled for tuberculosis by Partners In Health and Lesotho's Ministry of Health in April 2007.^[1][5] As of 2015, the hospital employed 130 health care workers.^[6]

In 2024, Selibe Mochoboroane Mochoboroane, then Lesotho's Minister of Health, said that Lesotho had the second highest incidence of tuberculosis in the world.^[7] In 2022, over 15,000 people contracted tuberculosis in Lesotho, and approximately 14 percent of those patients died of the disease.^[5] In 2024, the incidence rate was estimated to be 724 cases per 100,000 people.^[7] The small size of Botšabelo Hospital has limited the effectiveness of control of the disease in Lesotho.^[8] This is because patients have to wait for a bed in the specialised facility to become available in order to be isolated and receive treatment.^[8] While waiting, researchers have found that sick patients infect those in their community, and can even spread hospital-acquired infections by seeking treatment at other, less specialised hospitals.^[8]