Yesterday The Huffington Post published a post by James Nachtwey on his work documenting XDRTB.  He explains why, of all the topics he could cover, he chose to report this story.  His are powerful words.

During the past couple of weeks I’ve been asked many times why I chose tuberculosis as the subject for my TED wish. Part of the answer is - that it came from experience.  Since the year 2000 I’ve worked on a number of stories involving global health - and I kept encountering TB wherever I went. That TB is a huge health issue became obvious - as did the immense personal suffering being endured by the afflicted - and their families…

Despite the fact that tuberculosis afflicts a huge number of people - it’s not on the radar screen in terms of public awareness.

What makes tuberculosis such a worthwhile target - and please focus on this - it’s preventable - it’s treatable - and it’s curable. With proper funding, organization and, above all, political will, TB can be stopped.

The alternative to effective action has already begun to emerge, and it’s a frightening picture. MDR-TB is a mutation caused by inadequate care or misdiagnosis. It’s a hundred times more expensive to cure than normal TB, and requires much longer and more painful treatment. XDR-TB is a further mutation, for which there is no reliable cure. I see it as a merciless, man-eating predator lurking in the shadows. If it’s not contained, the consequences could be dire. I think I should let the medical experts talk about epidemiology, but because XDR has emerged out of a vast TB-infected population, my reason for choosing tuberculosis as the subject of my TED wish became absolutely compelling.

Everything that’s been done to make this global presentation possible has been done for the sake of the people you’ve seen in the photographs - and the millions of others like them.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under TEDPrize Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.