The TB Soup - March 24th World TB day

TB Soup

The Recipe to Maintain and Increase Tuberculosis

-- By Alberto Colorado, Director
Binational Health Project
County of San Diego
3851 Rosecrans St.
P.O. Box 85222, MS P511D
San Diego, CA 92186-5222

This is a program launched by the US-Mexico Office of Border Health, Texas. My freind and a member of Stop TB partnership, Dr. Sumanth had talked to some of the TB patients along the border and participated in the PhotoVoice Program. I would like to thank him for the contributuion and appreaciate his work. We all can contribute to this problem of Tuberculosis, even if we are not in our home country in anyway from spreading the awareness, doing TB research or planning programs or at the grassroot level.

This recipe below has not just come out of the blue. It was done with all efforts to have exact correlation with statistics available. This is very much applicable to the mexican border but if data is available on indian statistics regarding contributing factors to TB, we would make our recipe.

While I was doing this, I found this article about TB in INDIA. Have a look.

Tuberculosis is a disease that has prevailed through the centuries in indigent populations. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century we still follow the old recipe that favors a culture of separation between the people who have the disease and those who treat it.

Ingredients:

• 1 drug sensitive and 1 drug resistant Mycobacteria
• 40 oz. Mobile population without health insurance
• 50 oz. Lack of access to care and patient education
• 90 oz. Fragmented and costly medical system
• 90 oz. Narrow vision of the problem
• 50 oz. Barriers to communication
• 50 oz. Cultural ignorance
• 50 oz. Poverty and isolation
• ½ cup of HIV
• 1 tbsp. Alcohol and drugs
• 1 tbsp. of Diabetes
• ½ cup of Malnutrition
• ½ cup Stress
• a dash of Racism and discrimination
• a dash of Negligence

Preparation:

1- Mix the drug sensitive and drug resistant mycobacteria with a mobile population without health insurance, with a lack of access to care and patient education, who do not understand the medical provider’s language, with a fragmented health system and a narrow vision of the problem.

2- Add the medical provider’s ignorance about the patient’s culture and medical history.

3- Add the patient’s ignorance about the medical system and the disease.

4- Fold in, slowly, all the diseases and conditions associated with TB: alcohol, drugs, malnutrition, diabetes and stress.

5- Mix it all with negligence, racism and discrimination and pour into a container decorated with the thorns of poverty and isolation.

6- Serve cold, thinking only of statistics and forget those who are personally affected by it.