A few days back, I blogged about 2007 TED Prize winner James Nachtwey and his wish to work with TED to tell a story that the world needs to know. Today, the story is revealed at xdrtb.org.
As the title of this entry says, XDRTB is a mutated form of Tuberculosis that is extremely drug-resistant and difficult to detect.
Similar in creation to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) but more extreme in its manifestation, it arises when common tuberculosis goes untreated or standard TB drugs are
misused…Many people think of TB as a disease of the past, but in 2007 alone, TB killed 1.7 million people. That’s 4,660 deaths a day, or one death from TB every 20 seconds. TB is the leading killer of people with HIV: Individuals are able to live with HIV but are dying from TB. Without proper treatment, 90% of those living with HIV die within months of contracting TB.
TED and James Nachtwey worked together through James’ photographs to raise awareness of XDRTB.
Take a look at his photos that represent these varying strains. Learn more about TB, MDR-TB and XDR-TB, and learn how you can take action to stop this deadly disease.