Bureaucracy slows Ukraine's TB fight
Ukraine used to be known as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Now it holds another distinction: Home to one of the world's largest pools of tuberculosis. Frank Browning reports on publicly and privately funded efforts to deal with the disease.
Doctor treats tuberculosis patient in Ukraine. (World Health Organization)
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TEXT OF STORY
KAI RYSSDAL: For decades during the Cold War, Ukraine was probably best known as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Its crops helped feed the rest of the country. And farming's still important. But since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's earned another, less positive, distinction. It's home to one of the largest pools of tuberculosis in the world.
In the second part of our series on the resurgence of TB worldwide, Frank Browning has this report on private money and public health.
FRANK BROWNING: For 20 years Mikhail, who at 71 worked in the mines around Donetsk. Then he became a plumber. A little over a year ago his health began to fail.
MIKHAIL: During three months -- June, July and August -- I felt myself bad. I was weak. I didn't want to eat, and I began to lose weight.
Mikhail spoke to me through a medical mask at the local TB hospital. He was being treated for Multi-Drug-Resistant, or MDR, TB, which is especially virulent and hard to manage. Each year more than 40,000 Ukrainians come down with TB, 16 percent of them with MDR TB, giving Ukraine one of the worst MDR epidemics in the world. But now Ukraine's richest -- and some say shadiest -- oligarch, Renat Ahkmetov, is putting his own money into fighting the disease.
Anatoli Zabolotny runs Akmetov's Foundation for the Development of Ukraine.
Anatoli Zabolotny: We plan to spend $20 million for the next five years. We buy equipment, we buy medicine, we repair the tuberculosis hospitals, but at the same time we change the medicine system. We make it more effective.
The idea is to engage business directly in rebuilding Ukraine's public health system.
ZABOLOTNY: Most businesses do not like to deal with tuberculosis. But we do.
One of the foundation's first projects was to measure public awareness of TB.
ZABOLOTNY: In Ukraine, we have epidemic for about 15 years, but only 28 percent of the population know about this.
KATYA GAMAZINA: Almost all adult population is infected with tuberculosis.
That's Katya Gamazina, who directs training programs in Ukraine for PATH, a global company based in Seattle that promotes private participation in public health projects. Gamazina says only 10 percent of those who carry TB bacteria are likely to get sick. But, they are increasingly young men shooting IV drugs and infected with the AIDS virus. There is another problem -- that's politics.
A recent report from the World Health Organization cited bureaucratic wrangling between the old Soviet TB hierarchy and the current health ministry's HIV program as a major barrier to controlling the epidemic. The problem is compounded, says PATH's Katya Gamazina, by general political instability.
GAMAZINA: I could not even tell you how many ministers of health used to work during my time have passed. So, probably, I don't know, 15 or more.
Vladimir Muscovi is the chief doctor in the Akhmetev foundation's campaign. He says early diagnosis and keeping patients on treatment are key, so they don't develop the more serious MDR TB, which was rare in the old Soviet system.
Vladimir Muscovi: The doctors could go and find out all patients with TB. Now, if someone doesn't want to be treated, he doesn't go to the hospital and nobody worries about it.
In Donetsk, the foundation has actually taken over direct management of the TB program. That's in part, says Anatoli Zabolotny, because of chaos in the official public system, even down to the lack of patient registrations.
Anatoli Zabolotny: The Ministry of Health [has been] talking about the system for years, but nothing changed. And we have to create the system to get the real numbers, which doesn't exist. How many people are treated, how many people get healthy, how many people die.
At the World Health Organization, Marcos Espinal directs the Global Partnership Against TB, and he has tough words for Ukraine.
Marcos Espinal: The main issue for Ukraine is the political commitment. TB is not a medical problem, it's an economic problem. TB effects people between the ages of 19 and 55 years of age -- those economically productive. If we don't put that in the minds of the political leaders, then the problem will not be solved.
Lest Americans believe that they are protected by wealth and distance from Ukraine's troubles, there are major Ukranian communities in the United States, and these Ukrainian-Americans visit their homeland all the time, sharing their health and their airborne illnesses with the whole world.
In Donetsk, Ukraine I'm Frank Browning for Marketplace.
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From NOsrirGtFEgAsblzBxu, OR, 02/27/2009
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02/08/2009
Kharkov is going to host Euro-2012 games. The city will accept ten thousand fans from Europe. And none of them knows, that during 2007 year 10423 tuberculosis infected persons have died in Ukraine. Many of them have forgotten, that illness. Germany, Finland, Austria, Italy do not inoculate their citizenzs against this lethal disease.
Unfortunately, funds became insufficient and the Kharkov authorities made an original decision. Keeping within the limits of Euro-2012 preparation Kharkov reduces the number of tubercular departments. So, by March, 15th 345 places of 545 available will be reduced in the first Kharkov’s antitubercular clinic №1. But do not worry, it is a temporary situation: liquidation of last two hundred places and complete liquidation of the whole clinic will occur till the end of this year.
http://ua-ru-news.blogspot.com/2009/01/shvonders-struggle-with-crisis.html
02/08/2009
Kharkov is going to host Euro-2012 games. The city will accept ten thousand fans from Europe. And none of them knows, that during 2007 year 10423 tuberculosis infected persons have died in Ukraine. Many of them have forgotten, that illness. Germany, Finland, Austria, Italy do not inoculate their citizenzs against this lethal disease.
Unfortunately, funds became insufficient and the Kharkov authorities made an original decision. Keeping within the limits of Euro-2012 preparation Kharkov reduces the number of tubercular departments. So, by March, 15th 345 places of 545 available will be reduced in the first Kharkov’s antitubercular clinic №1. But do not worry, it is a temporary situation: liquidation of last two hundred places and complete liquidation of the whole clinic will occur till the end of this year.
http://ua-ru-news.blogspot.com/2009/01/shvonders-struggle-with-crisis.html
From san francisco, CA, 09/10/2008
TB can be successfully treated by using new knowledge of that the body responds, within minutes of being exposed to TB. The body has its own RADAR system that, if connected, will prevent & even cure TB. It works for free, which is great when dealing with rapidly evolving diseases effecting millions of poor people. The link that connects this RADAR system has been misunderstood for thousands of years. The link is this, for the bodies RADAR to work, people must break through an ancient taboo. The missing link is recycling.
Your own perfect medicine is a bodily fluid made by the body. It contains over 100 known organic compounds that can treat diseases. The most recent discovered is an antibody called anti Neo Plaston (ANP). They are found in large amounts in blood, sweat, tears & urine. ANP is presently being used to treat breast cancer. I am now using ANP to do research on preventing & treating TB. This letter is written in a popular style, to make the science acceptable to a wider audience.
Questions about your own perfect medicine.
Q. Do people who recycle their own perfect medicine (P) ever come down with TB?
A. No. Due to the recycling effect, people who drink their own perfect medicine never get TB. How it seems to work, is the body makes the anti Neo Plastons, (anp) a form of antibodies, within one hour of exposure. The largest amount is found in pee.
Q. Has anyone with TB ever been cured of TB by using their own perfect medicine?
A. Yes. The Prime Minister of India, Morarji Desai, cured his brother of TB, by teaching him to recycle his own Pee daily.
Q. How long has any person lived by just drinking their own P?
A. I just did a 9 day Fast. Others have gone as long as 40 days.
Q. How long would a person have to drink all their P each day, before they got sick?
A. Pee (anp) is not a waste product. P is almost identical to mothers milk & blood. Pee is used as an energy drink by millions in Germany, India, Brazil, Philippines & the US. Some of the most famous people in the US, like Linus Pauling, drank their own pee to prevent cancer & TB.
Q. What other diseases are treatable with pee?
A. People who recycle their own P rarely get: flu, colds, heart disease, colon cancer or malaria.
Q. What cutting edge research is being done today?
A. In one case in Utah, it was found to be able to help the body replace blood. (Aron Ralston) There are hundreds of biologists using it to try & treat AIDS in the US, Africa & Europe. They have shown some success, but more research is needed.
Q. If a person wanted to loose weight, would drinking 1 oz. their own P each day, help them loose weight?
A. Yes. This is one of the best known effects.
Q. If a person wanted to prevent cancer, would they be able to by drinking their own perfect medicine?
A. Yes. Dr. Stan Burzynski, MD, Houston, has been using this cure for 16 years. 713-335-5697
To read more, go to You tube: paul8kangas, or to see a free demonstration in the Philippines, from May 14 to May 21, please call Paul Kangas, 415 368 8581. I answer my office phone in Manila.
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