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A Raging TB Epidemic in Papua New Guinea Threatens to Destabilize the Entire Asia Pacific:
In Papua New Guinea, a TB epidemic threatens to turn into a disaster that could destabilize the Asia Pacific region. Situated about 90 miles from Australia in the Pacific Ocean, the island nation sees more than 100 cases of TB every day.
Of these cases, five are drug-resistant strains, and 10 people will die, according to World Health Organization figures. Yet, in a nation where more than one-third of the population is illiterate, these figures grossly underestimate the actual number of TB cases due to underreporting. Additionally, 86% of the country’s 8 million citizens live in rural areas with little or no access to health care, further obscuring the numbers.
The government now faces a herculean task to battle the epidemic that has plagued the country. It shares the island with the separate nation of Papua, Indonesia's easternmost province, which faces a similar struggle against TB. And Australia, a close neighbor, also has cause for concern: The bacterial disease that attacks the lungs is highly contagious, expensive to treat and is rapidly developing a resistance to drugs.
The country offers a grim textbook case of how education and infrastructure impact health care: The government has neither the finances nor the resources to tackle TB as an increasingly insurmountable health crisis.
[...] According to the WHO, 10 million new TB cases appeared globally in 2017 alone (though TB rates have fallen worldwide). That same year, it killed 1.6 million people, making TB the world’s deadliest infectious disease. And places like Papua New Guinea are seeing an uptick in infection rates — particularly in multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and the even more feared drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB)
This grim trend is exportable to neighboring countries.
[...] Many patients can only reach their nearest makeshift hospital by boat — and children have reportedly died en route to treatment after canoes capsize in choppy seas, according to aid workers.
Port Moresby, the capital, is not connected to other major towns by road, and many of the villages in the highlands can only be reached by foot or small aircraft, which is astronomically expensive. Frequent mobile cell service outages render communication a daily struggle. Several mountainous tribes still have little or no contact with the outside world.
[...] With approximately 850 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, TB education and treatment relies on educators who can speak local languages and dialects like Tok Pisin, a Creole language, and Hiri Motu, a trading language.
“It is not as simple as educating people about TB,” says Lungten Wangchuk, a Papua New Guinea-based TB medical officer with WHO. “We are coming up against traditions, culture, illiteracy, no proper transport, and no money to fund the expensive DR-TB treatment.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @11:03AM
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/056/667/madagascar.gif [kym-cdn.com]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Friday July 05 2019, @12:29PM (2 children)
... is possible even in underdeveloped countries. See the recent Ebola outbreaks in Africa. Australia will hardly blink, putting people in isolation after contact tracing. Poor Papu New Guniea might suffer though depending on how well islolation/treatment can be implemented.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday July 05 2019, @03:06PM
What are you talking about? Containment is way harder in developed countries. One guy coughing in an airport has most of the US and EU shutting schools and public transportation in most reponse protocols. If someone is sick in some village you just shoot their donkey and quarantine them, their family and their neighbors. Ebola isn't an example of "it can be also done in Africa". It's an example of "look how well it's handled in Africa and how impossible it is to handle here".
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @11:32PM
There are very few / infrequent flights-- the island is already pretty isolated (source, me; trying to get there and back in the same week from Denpasar, Indonesia).
There is an Australian pilgrimage that brings some visitors to the island (to retrace an historic trek from WWII), but there isn't much tourism besides that.
Treating folks already on the island is not going to be easy. Inland, there are small, remote, villages that only recently stopped engaging in cannibalism (and some that probably continue even today). I can't imagine a successful vaccination / treatment program, given the conditions.
(Score: 4, Funny) by loic on Friday July 05 2019, @12:57PM (5 children)
I've read the summary, and had to go through a good part of this piece to know what TB stands for. So I will settle for a terabyte epidemic instead.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday July 05 2019, @02:03PM (4 children)
That's a testament to how much things have changed in much of the world. During my father's generation (born 1922) using TB as shorthand for tuberculosis was nearly universal and very widely known. Most people would know someone who had caught TB. I can still remember the TB sanitorium that was in a nearby town being there when I was a little boy.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 05 2019, @02:21PM (3 children)
Things sometimes change back again, too. In this area, 30 years ago, TB was all but unknown. The prison population was most familiar with it. Today, thanks to immigration, discussion of TB is pretty common. We've returned to "Most people would know someone who had caught TB." or very near to it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday July 05 2019, @09:09PM
Today, thanks to immigration, discussion of TB is pretty common.
Really man! Time to kick the Brits and the Dutch out of North America!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 05 2019, @09:10PM
In another 30 years, TB will be something so small only computer geeks use, while the proplaguers are making sure that everyone will know about TB, small pox, and other measles.
It's a cycle
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:02AM
While the people I know who have had TB this year are immigrants, or rather grandchildren of immigrants, the population who mostly gets TB in Canada are the natives. You are right though about immigrants bringing it in over the last 500 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @01:47PM (1 child)
There is apparently a working vaccine
https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/vaccines.htm [cdc.gov]
Article mentions AUstralia funded last round of vaccines and that money is about to dry up.
What say you Australia, are you going to fund the next round or not?
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday July 05 2019, @05:50PM
I read the link to look for insight into why the vaccine isn't more common in the US, but came away with nothing. It's used elsewhere, and can be used here if certain risk factors are present, even with children, so the vaccine itself can't be too bad. But, instead, an exposure test is preferred. Maybe it's too expensive...
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has this explanation:
So, it's just not a great vaccine, with the usual reason:
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @09:42PM (1 child)
Has anyone considered the option to nuke the island? It would eliminate the disease, as well as a hotbed of jihadi extremism. Win-win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @02:34AM
According to this wiki page, the 2011 census found that 95.6% of Papua New Guinea citizens identified themselves as Christian. [wikipedia.org] In fact, that wiki page goes on to say that there are only about 2000 muslims in the country. Whatever extremism they have going on there, it is most likely not jihadi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @12:12PM
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-modernist-architects-believed-designs-healthier [artsy.net]
Here's are the last two summary paragraphs from the link,