Burmese Migrants Vulnerable to Tuberculosis
By, Violet Cho, The Irrawaddy, July 16, 2007
My chest is very painful when I breathe” said Paw Baw, clutching her chest while lying on a wood bed at a clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand’s border town with Burma.
“If I had followed the advice of the doctor (taking a drug treatment for six months), my disease would be cured now,” she said, regretfully, lying down on the bed of the Mae Tao Clinic.
Paw Baw, a 37-year-old ethnic Karen, is one of a growing number of tuberculosis (TB) patients diagnosed in the border area since last year. This is her second round of treatment.
“I felt better after I had taken medicine for several months,” she said. “Then I heard my eldest son was lured away to become a Karen soldier. I was so worried that I ran away from the hospital to find my son without finishing my treatment."
Thawat Sunthrajarn, the Thai Health Ministry’s director of disease control, said 58,000 tuberculosis cases have been reported so far this year in Thailand.
Two patients were confirmed with XDR-TB, a drug-resistant form, in the Mae Sot community along the border earlier this month. TB cases are likely to increase this year, according to officials.
Manoon Leechawengwong, the chairman of the Drug Resistant TB Research Fund at Bangkok’s Siriraj Foundation, said researchers started studying the drug-resistant form of TB in 2001 and had found 13 cases identified as XDR-TB, according to The Nation, an English language newspaper in Bangkok.
Burmese migrants are more vulnerable to outbreaks of tuberculosis than other nationalities and less likely to undergo full treatments, according to researchers.
Voravit Suwanvanichkij, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said “since migrants (Burmese) are often impoverished, illiterate, discriminated against, fearful of arrest—since most are undocumented— they consistently have a far higher default rate compared to Thais.”
Voravit said XDR-TB usually arises when patients get inappropriate medicines or fail to complete their treatment courses.
Burmese patients who fail to complete treatment regularly appear at the Mae Tao Clinic, said Mu Ni, a TB specialist at the clinic.
“We always have cross-border migrant TB patients who come back to get treatment at the clinic,” Mu Ni said. But, because of the obstacles, “this community will be the group which carries the most resistance cases in the coming year.”
Last year, the Mae Tao Clinic sent about 600 suspected TB patients to the French aid agency, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) in Mae Sot, to be tested. About half of the patients were confirmed to have TB.
Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, is the world's leading independent organization for medical aid. MSF presently treats TB patients in 39 projects in 19 countries, including Thailand.
Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=7618
My chest is very painful when I breathe” said Paw Baw, clutching her chest while lying on a wood bed at a clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand’s border town with Burma.
“If I had followed the advice of the doctor (taking a drug treatment for six months), my disease would be cured now,” she said, regretfully, lying down on the bed of the Mae Tao Clinic.
Paw Baw, a 37-year-old ethnic Karen, is one of a growing number of tuberculosis (TB) patients diagnosed in the border area since last year. This is her second round of treatment.
“I felt better after I had taken medicine for several months,” she said. “Then I heard my eldest son was lured away to become a Karen soldier. I was so worried that I ran away from the hospital to find my son without finishing my treatment."
Thawat Sunthrajarn, the Thai Health Ministry’s director of disease control, said 58,000 tuberculosis cases have been reported so far this year in Thailand.
Two patients were confirmed with XDR-TB, a drug-resistant form, in the Mae Sot community along the border earlier this month. TB cases are likely to increase this year, according to officials.
Manoon Leechawengwong, the chairman of the Drug Resistant TB Research Fund at Bangkok’s Siriraj Foundation, said researchers started studying the drug-resistant form of TB in 2001 and had found 13 cases identified as XDR-TB, according to The Nation, an English language newspaper in Bangkok.
Burmese migrants are more vulnerable to outbreaks of tuberculosis than other nationalities and less likely to undergo full treatments, according to researchers.
Voravit Suwanvanichkij, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said “since migrants (Burmese) are often impoverished, illiterate, discriminated against, fearful of arrest—since most are undocumented— they consistently have a far higher default rate compared to Thais.”
Voravit said XDR-TB usually arises when patients get inappropriate medicines or fail to complete their treatment courses.
Burmese patients who fail to complete treatment regularly appear at the Mae Tao Clinic, said Mu Ni, a TB specialist at the clinic.
“We always have cross-border migrant TB patients who come back to get treatment at the clinic,” Mu Ni said. But, because of the obstacles, “this community will be the group which carries the most resistance cases in the coming year.”
Last year, the Mae Tao Clinic sent about 600 suspected TB patients to the French aid agency, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) in Mae Sot, to be tested. About half of the patients were confirmed to have TB.
Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, is the world's leading independent organization for medical aid. MSF presently treats TB patients in 39 projects in 19 countries, including Thailand.
Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=7618
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