Damn

[mandragora]

So, friend who I'm going out with tonight has rung up to check whether we're still on and said that I might want to know that he's just got his test results and that he hadn't got TB!

I knew he was having tests, but he didn't mention what for. The reason he's been tested is that his girlfriend does have TB. Well, it's either that or she's in the terminal stages of lung cancer. I never thought I'd be hoping that someone has TB, but obviously in this case I am. It's not likely she has lung cancer as she's a 26 years old life-long non-smoker and she has none of the usual symptoms of advanced lung cancer.

But still. Damn.

Here's hoping that her TB is not one of the drug resistant strains and that the 6 months course of antibiotics she's on will cure her.

This is a depressing reminder of how TB is making a come back.

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

TB? T-bloody-B? My God. I thought they cured that back in the forties.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

A cure for TB was found in the forties, but it's never been completely eradicated. It was at its lowest in the UK during the 1980s where there were between 5-6,000 cases a year. Of course, the overwhelming majority of those people were cured.

It's still rare in the UK and the West in general. Nowadays in the UK there are about 7,000 cases a year. Death is rare and usually occurs in the case of people with other conditions, such as HIV. That said there were 73,000 deaths in the whole of Europe last year.

Worldwide TB kills 2 million people a year. Most of these deaths are preventable, if the sufferers only received the correct medicine. Mostly they don't, because they're poor. Of course this shouldn't happen in the 21st century. But neither should people dying of starvation.