Hi All,

This week I received a call from Nozipho Mkoko (Musa Mkoko’s wife) inform­ing me that Mr. Mkoko has been hos­pi­tal­ized with tuber­cu­lo­sis. Today, the Mkoko fam­ily granted me per­mis­sion to share this news with you all. As many of you know, Mr. Mkoko is the only sur­viv­ing miner from the film. His recent TB infec­tion is an exoge­nously acquired infec­tion of drug sus­cep­ti­ble tuber­cu­lo­sis, and not rein­fec­tion of his pre­vi­ous multi-drug resis­tant TB.

At the end of this mes­sage I have listed direct ways to con­tact the Mkoko fam­ily, either with mes­sages of sup­port or other means of assis­tance. I have also posted a way to access an unpub­lished link to a clip of Mr. Mkoko from the film. I invite you to watch.

This news is extremely wor­ri­some, and though the facts that he is receiv­ing care in Swazi­land and that his TB is drug sus­cep­ti­ble mit­i­gates some of the worry, we must also remem­ber that there are intense men­tal and psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of such a diag­no­sis. Though the treat­ment for drug sus­cep­ti­ble TB is less intense, it is by no means con­sid­ered a sim­ple treat­ment; put crassly, one’s fam­ily would not be ‘relieved’ that they were diag­nosed with a dif­fer­ent form of can­cer. As you can imag­ine, this news has been men­tally and emo­tion­ally dev­as­tat­ing to not only him, but also his fam­ily and community.

It is easy to assume that ‘care’ equals ‘cure.’ We are for­tu­nate that the Swazi­land Health Min­is­ter Bene­dict Xaba has greatly improved care and that access to med­ica­tion is no longer a hur­dle. But given his phys­i­cal state — weak, ema­ci­ated — and that his TB is com­pli­cated by HIV, a favor­able out­come is not guar­an­teed and is not even nec­es­sar­ily prob­a­ble. This all too seri­ously high­lights the con­tin­ued bat­tle that high-risk indi­vid­u­als have for con­tract­ing TB. Mr. Mkoko’s fam­ily will fight tooth and nail to ensure his well-being, just as they did dur­ing his last bat­tle, and just as they would if they faced one hun­dred bat­tles more, but he is weaker, older, and his lungs are lac­er­ated from spend­ing decades in the dusty mine­shafts where he once worked.

If you are like me, you empathize with Mr. Mkoko and have the urge to want to ‘do some­thing.’ But we should remem­ber our ver­sion of the TB epi­demic is not the same as Mr. Mkokos, how­ever our epi­demic is equally as chal­leng­ing. As the fam­ily of Mr. Mkoko fights their own bat­tles, we must real­ize that our fight is not in the dim lit homes of a Swazi house. Our role is not to change the wet sheets of a shiv­er­ing father who has per­spired through them, or in nav­i­gat­ing pub­lic trans­port for a full day to secure a blis­ter pack of pills. Our fight is to ensure that those fight­ing these bat­tles have the tools they need to win; that the Global Fund is funded, that the research and inno­va­tion we need comes to fruition, that TB REACH is expanded, that the mines lower risk, and that data-driven poli­cies that sup­port patient cen­tered care are rolled out. In con­tin­u­ing to fight the bat­tles we face in our epi­demic, we can ensure that future patients avoid ill­ness and such phys­i­cal and men­tal dis­tress. Though being behind a lab bench or key­board can often times seem dis­tant, it is equally as impor­tant as being in the field.

The TB epi­demic will not be over­come in a sin­gle broad, sweep­ing ges­ture — rather suc­cess will man­i­fest itself in sus­tain­ing the count­less indi­vid­ual efforts fought daily around the globe. It is up to us to define our own fight.

I ask that you keep Mr. Mkoko in your thoughts and prayers. He is one case out of the 8.7 mil­lion cases of TB in the world at present, but he rep­re­sents the pos­i­tive side of fight­ing an epi­demic — that peo­ple can over­come incred­i­ble obsta­cles. He and his fam­ily are a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of why we all fight to over­come TB.

If you would like to help the Mkoko fam­ily, you can do so in the fol­low­ing ways:

1) Email the fam­ily a mes­sage of hope and com­pas­sion. We have set up Mrs. Mkoko with a Gmail account that she can check peri­od­i­cally. Click here to email the Mkoko Fam­ily. (Or copy and paste: noziphomkoko@gmail.com)

2) Donate to directly sup­port Mr. Mkoko’s care. We have cre­ated a spe­cial fund for the Mkoko Fam­ily. We are not solic­it­ing funds per se, but this is indeed a tan­gi­ble way we can help; some­times defin­ing our fight is as sim­ple as sus­tain­ing the efforts of oth­ers. Click here to donate. (Or copy and paste: http://goo.gl/jQRCt)

3) If you are in Swazi­land or south­ern Africa and would like to help directly, please con­tact me for their phone and address.

4) To access the clip, click here and use the pass­word ‘mkoko.’ I will leave this up for about two weeks.

I am attach­ing a few pic­tures of Mr. and Mrs. Mkoko. I will keep you updated as I hear more.

Onward,

Jonathan