In 2000, the Ugandan physician Dr. Peter Mugyenyi gave a speech about the rich world’s refusal to expand access to drugs treating HIV/AIDS. Millions of people were dying each year of AIDS, even though safe and effective antiretroviral therapy could have saved most of their lives. “Where are the drugs? The drugs are where the disease is not,” Dr. Mugyenyi said. “And where is the disease? The disease is where the drugs are not.”
And so it is with TB. This year, thousands of doctors will attend to millions of TB patients, and just as my great-grandfather could not save his son, these physicians will be unable to save their patients, because the cure is where the disease is not, and the disease is where the cure is not.
