Previously the [him] moderator asked what happened after the MSF France programme closed in Mae Sot. A SEA-AIDS article on the issue provided part of the grim answer.
The moderator now realises that he has mis-spelled the word for doctor in French. He often makes spelling mistakes in other languages. Here is a trenchant and helpful commentary from a reader on this posting.
[him] moderator
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It is not the medicines that have no roots but the people, specifically those of Medecins Sans Frontieres France. Having started a programme for migrant workers that became a programme for TB, and then provided ARV treatment to those patients with HIV, it is totally iresponsible for them to have left without securing an agreed source of continued ARV medicine for these patients.
The continuing lack of provision of diagnosis and treatment for TB to people from Burma by Mae Tao Clinic or any other organisation is equally inexplicable.
It is unfortunate that again we have a repetition of the mistaken idea that stopping treatment for TB early generates resistance. There is no evidence to support this frequently repeated assertion, often by those who should know better. That too short treatment for TB leads to relapse and return of the TB illness with the same resistance pattern of the original infecting Mycobacteria has been demonstated in several studies from the days when the shortening of treatment to 6 months was being studied in Hong Kong and elsewhere.
Another assertion that basic face masks prevent spread and aquisition of TB is also highly unlikely to be true. Starting treatment as soon as possible is much more important (study by Jindani and Michisson) and the palm of a patients hand (not the fingers) correctly placed over the mouth when coughing is much more solid than any basic face mask which simply serves to label and stigmatise patients. In addition the hand is always available.
The fact that World Vision Thailand does not accept to treat patients with TB who do not live in the Mae Sot area is very unfortunate and they thus largely fail to fill the gap left by the departure after 10 years of MSF-France. The patients most unlikely to find treatment are thus excluded which probably makes the treatment results appear better but largely fails to address the continuing TB and HIV crisis in Burma and along the Thai border that was correctly identified over a decade ago and continues today.
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