Tuberculosis sufferer, & tuberculosis doctor, Armenia.

My husband Dave (a journalist) and I recently travelled to Armenia to do a feature story on tuberculosis in the former Soviet bloc. We went to have a look at the work that Medecins Sans Frontieres are doing there. And they're doing quite a lot, it turns out. Armenia is unfortunately a world leader in drug resistant TB. Widespread misuse of antibiotics created to combat TB has lead to drug resistant strains that now infect about half a million people a year, less than 3% of whom receive proper treatment. MSF have been running a TB program in Armenia for many years, and are the only people working to fight multiple drug resistant TB in Armenia. Suren (photo directly below), suffers from XDR (extensively drug resistant) TB. He caught the disease in a Russian prison 13 years ago. His wife and two children live in Belarus, therefore he does not see them often. He is an intelligent, funny, fragile, tired, sick man. The toxic drugs and the separation from his family cause him mental anguish, ''How do you keep going when you're afraid to hug and kiss your own children?'' he says. The photo above is of Dr Armen Gharagyozyan, one of the many inspirational medical professionals working with MSF in Yerevan. To read the full story in The Age newspaper online then click here, or to see more images from the story on my website, click here and look at ''The Ticking TB Timebomb''.