Seven-year-old Makasi, an HIV-positive orphan in Tanzania, was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis (TB) and started on curative treatment. Clinicians at a local health center used standardized TB guidelines to overcome the difficulty of identifying TB in children co-infected with other diseases. In Afghanistan, sixteen-year-old Hamida provides for her family while trying to complete school. Hamida was visited by a community health worker, who identified her TB symptoms, and helped her access appropriate diagnosis and treatment.
Steady Progress Against Daunting Challenges
Tuberculosis mortality has fallen by a third since 1990. Yet TB is still the second leading cause of death from infectious disease worldwide. The vast majority of new cases (8.8 million in 2010) and deaths (1.1 million in 2010) occur in poorer countries. TB’s effects are often most devastating among people in fragile circumstances. Poverty and conflict push people into crowded, unsanitary conditions without appropriate nutrition and health care.
Even more, TB is fast spreading, easy to misdiagnose, often co-morbid with other diseases, and, increasingly, highly drug-resistant.
