Dr. Paul Farmer: We Can’t Ignore Tuberculosis

As Partners In Health Co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer reminds us in "The Danger of Ignoring Tuberculosis," a recent article in The Atlantic, we can’t let the Zika virus or other emerging diseases distract us from working to eradicate deadly diseases such as tuberculosis.

In addition to the need for newer drugs and a faster way to diagnose tuberculosis, particularly drug-resistant TB, Farmer stresses the need for the kind of community-based care that PIH builds and sustains around the world -- where community health workers, nurses, and others visit patients regularly to help them stay on course with their TB treatment, which can last up to two years.

“Without community-based care, I don’t see how it can work,” Farmer says. “There’s not a lot of evidence that anything else works. It costs a lot more to give bad care in a facility than to give good care with community health workers.”

Why is it so important that we continue to do the work we do in global communities? Farmer’s last point answers that question best:

“…[T]he history of tuberculosis control is really one of forgetting. This is a transnational disease. So is Zika. So is Ebola. Without investments in the health system, the dream of rounding those last cases up? It’s really not a good dream. It’s more like a nightmare.”

Read the full article here.