Episode: "Street Life"
"Street Life"
PHILIPPINES | MYANMAR
| GUINEA | HONDURAS
In the Myanmar segment of this episode, a young child named Myo
with malaria has become anemic and must receive a blood transfusion.
Does malaria make you anemic?
Certain strains of malaria cause a rapidly evolving
anemia by rupturing red blood cells. If caught soon enough, even
the drug-resistant form of malaria that Myo has is treatable with
a unique combination of medicines. But Myo has arrived too late
and has developed such severe anemia that he requires a blood transfusion.
Myo must be transferred to a local hospital
for a blood transfusion. The MSF doctor tells Myo’s mother
that although MSF’s services are free, a transfusion in the
referral hospital will require a small fee. Myo’s mother is
too poor to pay so who covers the cost of the transfusion?
Sometimes, if MSF transfers a patient needing basic
but crucial care (like a transfusion) to a hospital that charges
a fee, MSF will pay the fee. MSF will also arranges deals with local
hospitals for complementary care. But this cooperation varies from
country to country. If a patient is transferred, MSF usually is
involved in the follow up care at the hospital and after the patient’s
release.
MSF has started to give HIV patients in Honduras
expensive antiretroviral drugs that halt the progression of AIDS.
MSF workers check each patient’s supply of drugs to see if
they have been taken properly. Are patients in developing countries
less likely to take their prescriptions regularly?
Although specific data on the Honduras project is
not available, a similar MSF project in Khayletisha shows adherence
of greater than 95 percent at three months of treatment.
In fact, according to an August 3, 2003 New York Times
article, people in countries such as Botswana, Uganda, Senegal,
and South Africa are more likely to take their medication than Americans.
AIDS patients in these countries “take about 90 percent of
their medicine. The average figure in the United States is 70 percent.”
Not taking medication as prescribed can accelerate
the development of drug resistance. Although drug resistance is
often perceived as a problem restricted to a few diseases in poor
countries, it is, however, an inescapable phenomenon in both the
industrialized and developing world. Resistance to drugs will inevitably
develop, and can do so despite good drug management and high compliance
to treatment. Fear of inducing resistance has never been a sufficient
reason to withhold necessary treatment in the industrialized world.
It should not be considered justifiable in the developing world.
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