In the shadow of a pandemic: How MSF fights killer diseases
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Reaching out to tuberculosis patients at risk
Although the death toll due to COVID-19 is staggering, it is just starting to overtake tuberculosis (TB) as the world’s deadliest infectious disease. (COVID-19 had claimed the lives of more than 1.5 million people by December 3 compared to the 1.5 million people who die each year from TB, according to the World Health Organization.)
As the world’s largest nongovernmental provider of TB treatment, MSF is working hard to keep people on lifesaving treatment programs. For example, when the Indian government instituted a strict national lockdown in March to contain the spread of the pandemic, our teams immediately reached out to TB patients and other vulnerable groups living in the poorest areas of Mumbai one of the most densely populated cities on earth. “In the initial phase [of the outbreak], there was a lot of fear in the community with regard to spread of the cor