Paul Farmer was born in Massachusetts in 1959, went to Harvard Medical School, became a doctor, and ended up living and working in Haiti. He co-founded an organization in 1987 called Partners in Health (PIH). The philosophy behind the organization is that everyone, no matter who or where has a right to health care. Paul Farmer and PIH have already made amazing progress in Haiti, Peru, and several other countries, helping people get the care they need. PIH’s website lists a detailed history of they and Farmer’s work in Haiti. When Paul Farmer first came to Cange, Haiti as a medical student in 1983, the place was in shambles. In 1956, a dam was built on the Artibonite River, flooding the village and forcing the residents to move up into the hills. Many of these displaced villagers were still essentially homeless after nearly thirty years, and had little access to quality health care. With the founding of the Zanmi Lasante clinic later in 1983, Farmer and his friend Ophelia Dahl set the people of Cange on the road to recovery by providing access to doctors, medicine, and emergency care, all completely free. (“Partners”) One of Farmer’s focuses was on tuberculosis (TB) and has had much success on this front. Through new studies and methods such as active case finding and community health workers, as well as his work with multidrug-resistant TB, Paul Farmer has revolutionized treatment of tuberculosis in Haiti and around the world.
Paul Farmer designed several studies that he used to help create new TB treatment methods, including a study about a system called active case finding, which helps find TB cases more quickly. The previous system of tuberculosis case finding is known as passive case finding. Passive case finding is when tu...
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...y done in Haiti about community health workers.
"Partners in Health History." Partners In Health. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. This article describe’s PIH’s history in regards to its founding and work in Haiti and other countries.
"Stories - Peru Journal - Part 2: Diseases of the Poor — International Reporting Project.” Web. 8 Dec. 2011. This article provides the population count of Carabayllo in 1994.
"Tuberculosis -Factsheets - What Is DOTS." WHO SEAR, Regional Health Situation, and World AIDS Day, Health Report. World Health Organization. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. This fact sheet describes the DOTS protocol used to treat tuberculosis.
"Tuberculosis Treatment Success Rate Under DOTS, Percentage." UNStats Millennium Indicators. United Nations, 7 July 2011. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. This data sheet shows the percentage of tuberculosis treatment successes under DOTS by country.
Its epidemiological importance is illustrated by World Health Organization Prevention of Tuberculosis includes better living conditions, proper nutrition, and positive health practices” (Fogel, 2015, p.530). Positive health practices include covering nose and mouth when coughing and frequent hand washing. Bacille Calmette-Gurin (BCG) vaccine tends to be given in other countries. Tuberculosis is known as one of the main causes of mortality in the world. This communicable disease is a serious public health conundrum. “The disease still puts a strain on public health, being only second to HIV/AIDS in causing high mortality rates” (Matteelli, Roggi, & Carvalho, 2014, p.
While practically every health indicator has improved in Peru in the past thirty years, these improvements have not been distrusted equally across the population. Most of the progress has occurred in urban areas, especially in the capital city of Lima, with the rural population lagging behind. It is easy to assume that all of the disparity results from the poverty that exists in the region According to the Population Reference Bureau (2015), the amount of people living below the poverty line is 36% higher in rural areas than in urban areas. While poverty is definitely a causative factor in the disparities that exist, in this paper I will examine some of these inequalities and show that the geographical isolation of many rural communities is
Tuberculosis or known as TB remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world, especially in developing countries. A combination of factors including high costs, limited resources and the poor performance of various diagnostic tests make the diagnosis of TB difficult in developing countries. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014), one third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis. In 2012, nearly nine million people around the world become sick with tuberculosis disease, and there were around one point three million TB related deaths worldwide.
Together, they work to lower prices of medicine, find cures for new strains of TB, open new clinics worldwide, find fund donors such as Partners in Health and the Bill Gates Foundation, and speak at conferences to raise awareness of how impoverished places are plagued with diseases. Diseases like AIDS, HIV, and TB are easily curable if the patient lived in the United States, but since medical care is not as abundant in impoverished places and often more expensive, thousands of people that live in those places die unnecessarily. Farmer works tirelessly to help every single person he can, and he won’t rest until the day he dies. An ancient Haitian proverb says, “Beyond mountains there are mountains,” which means that when you had solved one problem, you couldn’t rest because you had to go on and solve the next. The proverb exceptionally represents Dr. Farmer’s mind-set and relationship with the world. Farmer constantly travels the world participating in clinics, conferences, and meetings, yet he always finds time to go to Haiti. Growing up without having a steady home, Farmer considers Haiti his
With his many years of experience in Haiti, Chiapas, and other third world countries, Farmer has derived his understanding of how healthcare should
Dr. Paul Farmer was recently in the news for winning the 2016 Bronislaw Malinowski Award for his work in medical anthropology. I had previously read Mountains Beyond Mountains a biography about his life and work by Tracy Kidder. Dr. Farmer is the founder of the charity Partners in Health, which brings healthcare to the poorest people around the world. He has opened many health centers in Haiti, primarily treating HIV, tuberculosis, and cholera. He is also well known for combating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Chile and in the Russian prison system. As a representative of WPI’s Global Projects Program, I intend to learn the customs and traditions of local people, cooperate with them, and help to create a long lasting positive impact.
Farmer is dedicated to his work and would do anything in his power to help. Belinda Luscombe, from Time Magazine, describes during the interview how Farmer helped a man who was having an asthmatic attack. He only had his inhaler with him, but it was enough to save the man’s life. The next day he came to Farmer and praised on him for saving his life. This is just one example of many how Farmer would do anything to help someone in need. Farmer gives each of his patient’s individual care, letting them all know he cares. Kidder tells, “Farmer lingers beside the crib of a little girl with wasted arms and a torso bloated by pleural effusion—caused by extrapulmonary TB. She lies on her side. He reaches in and strokes her shoulder, saying softly, almost singing, in English, ‘Michela wants to give up, but we’re not going to let her, are we? No, we’re not going to let her.’” (31). The way Farmer gives each patient individual care, it lets them know that there is hope they will get better, and that he cares and will do anything he can to help them. Farmer also had hope that Haiti would finally change one day. Kidder
During the twentieth century, more than 300 million deaths worldwide were due to smallpox, however, in 1980 after a global collaboration led by the World Health Organization, the first infectious disease to be eradicated was smallpox. On the other hand, during the 20th century tuberculosis which was once thought to have been declining in developed countries, is now according to WHO (2013) second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide. This disease has been estimated by The World Health Organisation (2013) to kill 1.3 million people per year, the majority of those being in developed countries. Therefore, in this essay I will compare the prospects for control and eradication of tuberculosis to smallpox, with a reference to the interplay required between both biological and social factors.
"The World Bank." Gender Equality Data and Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014. .
...Department of Health and Human Services of United States proposed a goal to completely abolish tuberculosis from the Earth by 2010. However, several Missouri counties have stated tuberculosis' recent rise and saying it still is a threat as it is airborne and infectious; tuberculosis will persist to be a peril to humanity (Nochlin, 2010). People still need to defeat various obstacles to reach that goal as AIDS and TB are cooperating to kill victims faster as well as intensifying the dangers of certain TB. Different parts of the world are also in danger, including India and Africa and Africa is particularly in great danger. Twenty-five million there are HIV-positive and 200 million are infected with inactive TB (Zimmerman, 2003). Certainly, these statistics forecast an inevitable massacre and the white death may become the greatest health disaster in human history.
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infection that can attack any part of the body, but it is normally found in the lungs (Huether, McCance, Brashers and Rote, 2008,). TB is an infection caused by a acid-fast bacillus also know as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Huether et al. 2008) It is one of the leading causes of death in Asia, China, Indian, Indonesia and Pakistan (Huether et al. 2008). These countries show that in most cases the incidence rate is highest in young adults, and are usually the result from re-infection in recent infections. The spread of TB is attributed to the emigration of infected people from high-prevalent countries, substance abuse, poverty, transmission in crowd places, and the lack of proper medical care for the infected individuals (Huether et al. 2008).
United Nations Publications. Commission for Social Development: Report on the Forty-fourth Session 18 February 2005 And 8-17 February And 22 March 2006. New York: United Nations Publications, 2006. Print.
World Bank. Independent Evaluation Group. World Bank (2013). Results and performance of the World Bank Group: Volume 1. Retrieved from World Bank website: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PROJECTS/Resources/40940-1367867968385/2013_WorldBankforResults.pdf
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). (2000). Human development report 2000. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.