They go to die. Until now. For decades, workers in South Africa’s gold and diamond mines have endured harsh working conditions, including crowded living quarters, poor safety measures, extreme temperatures, coercive labor contracts and separation from their family members.
Louisiana poet and activist Clint Smith performs a chilling spoken word poem describing the South African miners’ struggle to stay alive
ONE member and Peace Corps volunteer Brandon Green will be sharing his experiences in Burkina Faso with ONE Blog readers in the series, “Back to Africa” over the next few months.
In honor of World TB Day, Ive decided this year to share the fact that I have TB, previously only my immediate family and very close friends knew. Its not that great a story in the least. But at least it shows that its possible to get treatment and its ridiculous that people are dying from this.
I remember the day I was diagnosed with it. In order to become a Peace Corps volunteer, I had to go through an extensive medical exam that took months of filling out paperwork and taking different kinds of tests, one of which was for TB. I remember the fear I felt. Not only was I afraid this disease would keep me from getting into the Peace Corps but I also knew that TB is one of the leading killers in the world. In fact, every minute, three people die of TB.
Brandon Green and some of his students in Burkina Faso
Tuberculosis is a disease that primarily attacks the lungs but can also attack other parts of the body. Once I was diagnosed, I had a chest x-ray to see if my TB was latent or active. Active TB shows symptoms such as a chronic cough and may eventually lead to death. Only active TB is contagious through contaminated saliva in the air. Mine was latent. That means I am infected but show no symptoms and am not contagious. Only 1 in 10 people with latent TB become active. And without treatment, 50 percent of those will die.
Our friends at Stop TB Partnership share a story about a TB patient on his way to recovery to mark World TB Day, which takes place on Saturday, March 24.
Meet Saleem, 28. A year ago he was staggering from doctor to doctor with a raging fever, a weakening body and a fear that he would never get an accurate diagnosis for his illness.
Today, as we prepare to mark World TB Day, this photo of Saleem is evidence that he’s on track to making a full recovery.
Action: 34. Time: 15 minutes. Level of difficulty: Easy.
Tuberculosis has always felt like an old-fashioned disease to me, right there with cholera, polio and dysentery. But unfortunately, it’s not. Today, about one-third of the world is infected with tuberculosis, a disease that attacks the lungs. If left untreated, it can be deadly, and in fact it is the leading cause of death for people infected with HIV/AIDS.
Not enough people know that. But next week, you have a chance to make it right. Saturday, March 24, is World Tuberculosis Day, which marks the day that Dr. Robert Koch discovered the cause of tuberculosis in 1882. We want you to help our friends at the Stop TB Partnership raise awareness around this disease by making a customized Stop TB poster.
The Global Fund and South Africa’s award-winning Isango Ensemble have joined forces to breathe new life into “La Bohème,” a classic 19th century opera by the acclaimed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. Titled “Abanxaxhi,” (the Xhosa language translation of the original title), the contemporary interpretation transplants the setting from Paris in the 1830s to South Africa today, complete with revamped instrumentation for marimbas and steel pans. But even with these drastic changes in time and place, the opera’s main storyline doesn’t require any tweaking. The opera tells the tragic tale of Mimi, a young seamstress who dies of tuberculosis — a story all too common in the South African townships.
“Some stories are so strong that even if you take them from a hundred years ago when they were written and put them in the present context, they still make sense,” explains Pauline Malefane, the ensemble’s music director and star performer. “’Bohème’ is like that. It’s exactly how people live in the township: People who are unemployed, but very happy within themselves, and know how to look after each other.”
Mandy Slutsker of ACTION discusses a very serious development in the fight against tuberculosis.
Andrew Speaker caused an international incident in 2007 when he boarded an international flight while infected with XDR-TB, a form of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs. It was terrifying to imagine what could have happened if the flight had taken off. Was there anything scarier than flying next to a person with extensively resistant TB?
On a plot of land about the size of a football field sit two yellow-and-white structures. The small building (pictured at top) is a tuberculosis “clinic” responsible for serving the 2 million people who live in Huaycán, a township of Lima that has the second-highest TB prevalence rate in Peru.
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
