TB sufferer Vazgen, Yerevan.

My husband Dave (a journalist) and I recently travelled to Armenia to do a feature story on tuberculosis in the former Soviet bloc. Vazgen, 57, lives in the capital Yerevan with his wife Anahit, their two daughters, and granddaughter. Vazgen has suffered from multiple drug resistant tuberculosis for many years, and is currently undergoing the Medecins Sans Frontieres TB program. Due in part to bad education in Armenia about the disease, TB has a huge stigma there. Many people don't realise that it can be curable. I met TB sufferers who hadn't told their peers, friends or even family, that they have the disease. For that reason many TB sufferers did not want their picture taken, except, that is, Vazgen, whose wife Anahit says “We are tired of being ashamed of this disease,”. Vazgen says, ''My friends find an excuse to avoid me. But you get used to that.''. It's heartbreaking, especially when you consider that it doesn't have to be this way: with a bit of education in Armenia people could change their attitude. If you want to read the full story in The Age newspaper online, click here. If you want to look at the full set of photographs on my website, then click here and look at ''The Ticking TB Time Bomb''.