Foundation opens TB lab in Africa

摘要

Patients huddle in dressing gowns outside the entrance to the King George V Hospital in Durban, South Africa. It is safer out here: fresh air limits the spread of disease. Inside, the sickest lie listless, too tired to get up, or perhaps beyond caring.This threadbare hospital is on the front line in Durban's war against multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Its patients - most of whom also have HIV - undergo gruelling courses of treatment that last for months or years. Those who get better may experience side effects such as hearing loss or psychosis. The unlucky ones die.