Go Back to – Face It!
Today, a little over forty years since a cure was found for tuberculosis, it is staging a fierce come back in the wake of HIV and the mutation of tuberculosis strains leading to multi-drug resistant (MOR-TB) and extensively drug resistant (XOR-TB) tuberculosis. Poverty – being the primary factor for most human suffering – creates favourable conditions for the spread of tuberculosis, but by no means is it contained in this environment. Anyone can catch this airborne disease, and one third of the global population carries dormant tuberculosis.
With public knowledge of TB not being sufficient, it has lead many to make uneducated assumptions about people living with TB. 60% of TB patients are co-infected with HIV in South Africa, this has lead to many believing HIV and TB are the same disease, hence TB patients find themselves receiving the same stigma HIV patients face. Many also won’t go near TB patients out of fear of contracting TB. TB patients who are on TB treatment for longer than 2 weeks are no longer contagious. Though not completing treatment can lead to the development of MDR-TB. Therefore it is imperative to finish treatment.
Uneducated beliefs have unnecessarily lead to people losing their jobs, being shunned by family and friends. Having these prospects in view, can affect the number of symptomatic people coming forward to test for TB, or go to clinics to receive treatment.
Tuberculosis is a curable disease but the only way to be cured is to test and medicate for it. For as long as people fear the response they will receive from society for admitting to having TB we will never be able to overcome it.