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 Molina, 26, lives in the shantytown of Lujan near the wealthy
capital with his parents, six siblings and four nephews. Doctors
think one brother contracted the disease in prison and then spread
it around the family when he returned home.
Cases of the "white death" illness, closely linked to malnutrition
and poor housing, have been on the rise since the turn of the decade
as Latin America's third largest economy has been battered by repeat
recessions and inflation.
Currently, fast-rising prices and recession are driving more people
below the poverty line and stoking homelessness and hunger. The
poverty rate stood at above 35% in the first half of the year,
hurting Argentine President Mauricio Macri, who is expected to lose
the general elections this Sunday.
"Tuberculosis is the collateral damage of poverty," said Laura
Lagrutta, an Argentine respiratory specialist focused on treating
children with the disease.
According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization,
there were 10,320 reports of new and relapsed TB cases in Argentina
last year. The number of cases, which had dropped steadily since the
1980s, started to rise again after around 2010.
Tuberculosis kills 5,000 people every day globally and is one of the
world's biggest killers.
Farm-rich Argentina is still better off than some of its South
American neighbors, including Brazil and Peru where incidence of the
disease is higher. But the infection rate in Argentina is rising
worrisomely.
Marcela Natiello, coordinator of the national TB and leprosy control
program, said a declining trend since the 1980s had reversed in
2013, linked to "multiple and complex causes."
"TB primarily affects the most vulnerable populations, with low
economic resources, residing in poor, badly ventilated and
overcrowded environments," she said, adding that over half of all
cases were in the populous area around Buenos Aires.
RECORD NUMBERS
Doctors said the rise in the number of cases was straining some
hospital wards where patients with TB are being treated.
Patricia Figueroa, a social worker at the Muniz public hospital,
said the facility was struggling with overcrowding as it faced a
growing number of TB patients, which she described as "a record in
recent history."
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"Due to overcrowding, the hospital is discharging patients with low
risk of contagion in order to receive high-risk ones, something very
dangerous," she said, adding that the hospital was looking at how to
add more beds to other wards to accept more people.
In slums around the country Reuters spoke to many people with the
disease, who all described living in cramped and insecure housing
and lacking an ample supply of nutritious food.
In Villa 31, a populous shantytown neighborhood in the capital, Luli,
19, has gone through a year of treatment since contracting the
disease while she was pregnant. She says her now-months-old baby
luckily did not get infected.
Luli lives in a flat with one bedroom, a kitchen and no bathroom
together with her son and partner. The three sleep in one room. "We
are constantly moving from one house to another because of the high
price of the rent," she said.
Daniel, 40, who lives in the same area, is also being treated for
HIV, which made him more vulnerable to tuberculosis. He is largely
immobilized with an injury to his hip as well as scarring on his
lungs.
Brigida Simaniz finished her TB treatment in May. She lives with her
two children in the shantytown of Bajo Flores in Buenos Aires, all
three sharing a single bed. She feared passing the infection to her
kids.
"I was scared when they told me the diagnosis because I did not know
it existed. I always followed the treatment as the doctors said for
fear of infecting my children," said Simaniz, who works in a textile
workshop earning 70 pesos ($1.19) an hour.
"Even though it was cold at night," she said, "I opened the windows
of the room to circulate the air."
Photo essay here https://reut.rs/2PeoKWG
(Reporting by Magali Druscovich; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by
Leslie Adler)
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