By Tristan Bayly & Huong Nguyen Antibiotics have been available to treat tuberculosis (TB) since the 1940s, but the improper use of these drugs and the failure to ensure that patients complete the whole course of treatment, have given rise to strains of TB that have developed resistance. Drug-resistant TB…

by Harriet Kagoya and Tristan Bayly Tuberculosis (TB) and HIV together can be a lethal combination. Each disease affects the progression of the other, so it is important to get both diseases under control as quickly as possible. …

She knows how it is transmitted — She knows the symptoms She knows how to treat it The one thing she can’t tell you is exactly how she got it. Despite what many people may think, tuberculosis (TB) is not a disease of a different era, it is a disease of the here and now. A disease which kills with impunity, and spares no one. When she first got sick, she was working in a hospital doing her medical training…

Supporting Patients with Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Tajikistan By Sayora Ziyoyeva and Tristan Bayly Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (TB) are on the rise worldwide. These forms of TB develop when people are prescribed the wrong drugs or if they fail to take their medicines properly or for the whole course. The…

by Marion Biremon Kiyal has found her weapons against tuberculosis (TB): staying optimistic and most importantly active. She’s on treatment for multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), a treatment that includes eight months of daily injections and nearly two years of antibiotics, but she’s keeping busy and taking every opportunity to fill her…

Bringing TB Diagnosis and Care to Those Who Need it Most — by Christopher Zishiri & Tristan Bayly Tabita Kwanga lost her husband to tuberculosis (TB) in November 2016, leaving her alone with six young children to raise by all by herself. The loss of her husband was not only a terrible blow emotionally, it left the whole family destitute, with no…

Finding the missing TB patients in Nigeria Those who share their living space with people who have tuberculosis (TB) have a much higher chance of catching the disease than the population in general, so not surprisingly checking all these people (known as ‘contact investigation’) is a way of finding more…

Marion Biremon & Tristan Bayly When Umutai got sick with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) she was forced to go back to her home country of Kyrgyzstan and put her dreams on hold. She had only recently moved to Russia after leaving her job as a hairdresser in the southern region…

by Jean-Pierre Kabuayi & Tristan Bayly The central prison of Mbuji-Mayi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was built in 1952 and designed to house just 150 inmates, but by 2016, this figure had risen to around 450. …