Rambling Onwards

Tuberculosis (TB) is not something you hear of every day. When was the first time you heard of it? For me, it was when I first watched Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge! a few years ago, although it was called consumption in the film. At the time, I didn't understand why Satine was coughing up blood and why that was such a worry until I read the plot summary afterwards and did some reading on TB. However Moulin Rouge! was set in 1900 - so much has changed, and today in the Western world we rarely ever have to worry about contracting TB it has just about disappeared.

But many people in other parts of the world are not so lucky.

Soba holds her son Sawai Naruwa, who has lost the use of his legs as a result of tuberculosis in Daru in 2011. Photo: Jason South

In countries, like our closest neighbour Papua New Guinea (PNG), TB is on the rise again. TB is still a major cause of death in kids along with pneumonia especially in Africa. And it's one of the most common deaths for people with HIV, but it's not part of the statistics because they count as deaths because of HIV and so those people become invisible.
But what exactly is it?