The youngest of nine children, Ruth Naomi Leon (who later started calling herself Tania) was born in a small town called Wellington in the Cape Province (now Western Cape) on 4 May 1945. Her mother, Elizabeth Sampson, was a domestic servant and her father, Frank Leon, was a factory worker and shopkeeper before starting a fish trade, which improved her family’s financial situation.

Tuberculosis, also known as TB, occurs all over the world and is one of the most infectious diseases, causing more deaths than HIV/AIDS and Malaria [1] [2]. It is estimated that a quarter of the world’s human population is infected or has been infected with the TB bacteria and at risk of developing the disease [3].