Tuberculosis: "All I need is a metre of rope"
Despite ranking alongside HIV as the leading cause of death by infectious disease worldwide, the global response to tuberculosis (TB) has been found wanting.
Because the drugs used in standard treatment have not changed in over 40 years, they are becoming less and less effective due to increasingly high levels of resistance from the bacteria.
In the seventh episode of Everyday Emergency, Australian doctor Amrita Ronnachit discusses her time battling the disease in Uzbekistan, and the case of one patient who struggled with his treatment.
MSF and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is a deadly infectious disease.
Every year, over 10 million people develop active TB and 1.6 million die from it.
TB is often thought of as a disease of the past but a recent resurgence and the spread of drug-resistant forms make it very much an issue of the present day and age.
Almost half a million people develop multidrug-resistant strains of the disease every year. Today, TB is one of the three main killer infectious diseases, along with malaria and HIV/AIDS.