TB in Liberia

Amanda O’Donnell 

March 25, 2009

11:50pm

Tuberculosis on the Rise in Liberia

World health officials meeting in Brazil this week say more people are dying from tuberculosis than ever before. Nearly half of the countries most affected are in Africa. In Liberia where treatment for tuberculosis is limited by a shortage of funds.

Of the 22 countries responsible for 80 percent of the world's tuberculosis cases, health officials say nine of them are in Africa.

The disease is particularly hard to fight because of the emergence of multi drug resistant and extensively drug resistant strains that are more expensive to treat. There is a generally lower level of primary health care and less access to that care in rural areas.

Africa is also home to more than 22 million people who have the virus that leads to AIDS, and the World Health Organization says death rates among TB patients with HIV have doubled since 2007, now accounting for at least one in four TB deaths. Tuberculosis kills nearly 5,000 people a day and is the leading cause of death for people living with HIV/AIDS.

All of these issues that have to do with health issues in other countries all end up going back to money as the main issue. These people do not have enough money of supplies to treat this disease. There are millions of people that die yearly because of TB but they only have enough supplies to treat about 5,000 people for the disease yearly. 

This frustrates me beyond belief for these people. Mostly because I hear and see what people are talking about what’s going on in the US right now and we are complaining but yet we have more than enough doctors to treat us and we don’t have diseases killing millions of people. Even if there were a epidemic of the disease I can guarantee that the United States would have enough medicine and treatment for every single person. My heart just breaks for these people and really puts a lot of things into perspective for me. I mean we are very lucky people yet we complain about gas prices... come on, give me a break! Complain about something when we have millions of people dying of the same disease and cant afford medicine to treat it. 

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-25-voa39.cfm