It is an illness long forgotten in the minds of many, but one which continues to impact thousands of people world-wide today. Consumption, the White Plague, tuberculosis: it has been around in some form for thousands of years. The tell-tale signs were incessant coughing, coughing up blood, and rapid loss of weight and colour followed by a slow, painful death.
However, the early 20th century brought about the advent of antibacterial drugs and vaccines and it was thought that tuberculosis was gone for good… at least in the West where these new anti-tubercular medications were available.
Today, the illness is by no means gone, and strangely the number of infected persons has been increasing over the past few years, as well as the prevalence of a new strain of “superbug” TB which is more antibiotic resistant. In 2014, a recorded 1.1 million people around the world died of tuberculosis, compared to 1.2 million people killed by HIV/AIDS world-wide. For the first time since the mid-90s, tuberculosis is coming close to surpassing HIV’s death toll.
Once so common it was responsible for 900 in every 100 000 deaths, TB has become a kind of “romantic” illness of the past. Now, here in Canada, stats say that TB affects only about 5 in 100 000 people every year. Sadly, as may be expected, the majority of people affected with it are Aboriginal people in poorer, remote northern communities with limited access to the resources our country possesses to deal with this illness – something very much in common with world statistics right now.
The majority of recent deaths from TB have been in countries like India and China, a fact which may seem shocking at first glance because these countries are by no means “poor”. These are countries which are considered able to address domestic health issues like TB outbreaks. Although these countries are large players on the world market, however, there are still areas where people live in conditions of extreme poverty with limited access to resources, and, like the communities in northern Canada, it is these areas which are most affected.
For a disease that is completely recoverable, it is simply irresponsible that there should be so many deaths due to TB in the 21st century. Unfortunately, it is due in part to a lack of funding for TB that there is such an upsurge of deaths from this infection; it received only a tenth of the funding which HIV/AIDS received in 2014.
In some ways, the World Health Organization’s new report on the TB crisis is a good thing. It is, for the first time in a while, making people aware of the real threat posed by TB today, even in more developed countries. It can be hoped that the WHO’s report will bring about a shift in public attention, and a greater amount of funding to help people in need recover from this curable disease.
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