A Partners in Health doctor examines the lung x-ray of a patient with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. |
Dedication Saves Lives
writer: adam hanson
photographs courtesy of Partners in Health
-world health organization |
Imagine going to the doctor with symptoms like coughing-up blood, chest pains and a fever. After an X-ray and a few tests, the physician says you have tuberculosis (TB) and explains that the strain you have contracted is resistant to the standard antibiotics used to cure your disease. You are highly contagious and a danger to your loved ones. The doctor’s advice for you is to leave the hospital, seclude yourself and prepare to die alone.
Partners in Health (PIH) has cured thousands of TB patients in Peru where many impoverished people infected with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) were
left to die. |
TB is an infectious bacterial disease that most commonly attacks the lungs, but it can spread almost anywhere in the body.
A PIH doctor examines a young child. Parents with MDR-TB can easily spread the disease to their children. |
Fourteen percent of patients newly infected with TB acquire the drug-resistant strain.
Experts estimate that one-third of the world’s population is infected with the microbes that cause TB; however, most people’s immune systems are able to keep the bacteria in a latent form that is non-transmittable.
An individual with an active TB infection can transmit the disease through the air, by coughing, sneezing or even breathing, where it can survive for several hours.
Poor access to proper medications or discontinuing treatment prematurely creates a new drug-resistant strain called MDR-TB. TB and MDR-TB are equally contagious; however, the drug-resistant strains are much harder to treat. Doctors must use antibiotics that have been out of circulation for over 50 years. |
Hi. I'm Alex, I'm 8 years old and in third grade. I go to school every day.
I remember one day, my dad wasn't wearing a shirt. He opened the refrigerator, and all that cold air got him sick with tuberculosis because he began to cough blood from his mouth and nose. My mom also had the same symptoms. ... She was a skeleton. ... She died, just like my dad. That happened three years ago already. When I sleep, I always dream I am with my dad and mom. When I remember them, I cry.
When [my mom] coughed, we would pat her so she felt warm, and she would sleep. Sometimes, when they were healthy, I would sleep with my mom and dad; we would sing together too. When my mom was sick, I was sad, and I asked her, "Mommy, are you going to die?" She responded that no, she was going to be with me every day. I was happy, but then she died, and I cried very hard.
Sometimes, with the treatment, food didn't sit right with me. . The pills didn't make me vomit, but they made me feel gross. My throat got dry; my head hurt. First, they gave me the pills and the shots; then, they stopped the shots. ... Mrs. D [a nurse from PIH] plays with me, and she took me out to eat. She loves me a lot. Whenever she sees me, she hugs me, and she buys me something, a candy, a cookie or a yogurt. I love her too.
excerpt from: "venciendo la tb-mdr: 20 testimonios de expacientes con tuberculosis multidrogorresistente," or "conquering mdr-tb: stories of 20 former multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients." published by: partners in health, peru, 2006. translated into english by tiffany enriquez linaldi. |
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