No other infection kills more people than tuberculosis. Alone in the year 2018, 1.5 million people died around the world. More than 4100 in a day. The lungs are affected, cough, the patients lose their appetite, grow thin. If left untreated, they die a slow, creeping death.
A quarter of the world’s population carries the pathogen, without that he would be so far broken out – he rests, therefore, in a kind of sleep state. But especially small children, malnourished and Immuno-compromised are diagnosed with treacherous Mycobacterium. “In India, we have, as before, most of the cases of tuberculosis,” says Soumya Swaminathan, of the world health organization (WHO). As a researcher and Practitioner, she fought in her country for more than 25years against this most neglected disease.
up Close, she has witnessed that patients in rural areas of India and the Slums of the megacities due to the poor access to high-quality medical care, each rescue is too late. In addition, the lack of timely and correct diagnosis and treatment more frequently led to a multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, so that the usual antibiotics.
But now wants India eliminated the disease in 2025. “The goal is very ambitious and probably not realistic,” says Swaminathan in the open. It is but a first step in the right direction. Because it is only when the Problem would be in the focus of policy and public perception, there are funds for the financing of efficient measures.
in California
The 60-year-old lung specialist and pediatrician research is the first Director for science at the WHO. Her academic training is like a trip around the world, as they lived not only in India but also in England, Scotland and the USA. She has co-developed the end of the 1980s in the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for a study of a respiratory measurement device, in order to investigate the mysterious causes of sudden infant Death syndrome. In their homeland they focused mainly on the treatment and diagnosis of tuberculosis. Overall, she has published more than 350 publications and book chapters.
The current Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, caught up with Swaminathan 2017, the UN Agency in Geneva. First of all, she was his Deputy. However, in order to give the science in the future even more weight, has created the expert for infectious diseases and Public Health you half a year ago, extra this new position.
Before Swaminathan came to Switzerland, where she was already from 2009 to 2011 as a coordinator of a special programme for tropical diseases worked in Delhi as Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research – one of the world’s oldest and largest institutions for biomedical research, which is funded by the Indian Ministry of health.
The coffee Cup in your office, you are reminded daily of the goal to defeat tuberculosis once.
she Grew up in Delhi and in the southern Indian metropolis of Chennai on the Bay of Bengal. In a way, you stepped in the foot of her internationally renowned father’s footsteps. The agricultural scientists was for the “green Revolution” in India. Because he fought for the breeding of high-yield varieties of rice and wheat. His Vision was to rid the world of Hunger and poverty. In 1987, he received the world food and founded with the prize money to a Foundation that supports sustainable agricultural development and economic betterment of the farmers.
“you were at home students we always used to visit, so there was a lot of interesting scientific discussions,” recalls Swaminathan. With her father, she and her two sisters took frequently to the test fields and into the lab, which she developed early on a passion for research. Her mother was a teacher. You have taught her and her siblings, social responsibility and a sensitivity to those less fortunate in life.
you Can use such experience in your present Job? “Yes, of course,” she says promptly, for our interview in the seventh floor of the WTO building in Geneva. The most important is that you discuss the specific needs of the people. It will bring nothing, if one is focusing only on a disease. As she spoke, for example, in the context of its tuberculosis research with the women in the villages, said this to her clearly, that in them tuberculosis is the most pressing Problem and it is compared only relatively rarely occurring. Rather, you absolutely need aid against severe diarrhea in small children.
“Only a holistic approach to long term,” adds Swaminathan. In addition, the local health workers must be fully integrated. This is necessary to avoid a possible mistrust of the population to reduce to new medical interventions and at the same time but also simple Hygiene measures and precautions anywhere to default to. So no longer could it happen that a child with Malaria to the hospital and there to Ebola am prone. In this regard, there is still much to do.
vaccines against Ebola
But the Doctor also sees the progress that has been made. In contrast to the recent Ebola epidemic five years ago, she had no vaccines, and no drugs. Meanwhile, the Congo in the Democratic Republic of the, where the Virus is raging for a year, 250?000 people vaccinated. The huge Problem is, however, that the containment of the disease was being hampered by fighting between militias and gangs, and thus also health facilities and medical personnel are always the target of armed groups would.
in addition to the major infectious diseases Swaminathan sees the non-communicable chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease or Diabetes as an additional disaster. Often they could be avoided by a healthy lifestyle. In order to combat risk factors, is the App in the “Be He@lthy, Be Mobile” information in the prevention of disease directly to mobile phone users in the remotest places in the world provide.
the Integration of traditional health knowledge such as Ayurveda and Chinese medicine in the basic medical care is examined. “But only if there are scientific studies,” she adds. This is a prerequisite.
daughter in Hawaii, the son in the India
Due to their current employment at the WHO in Geneva is distributed to your family currently, all over the globe. Her husband still works as a surgeon in a hospital in Chennai. There is also the 27-year-old son, who works as a game designer living, while the 30-year-old daughter as a marine biologist explores in Honolulu coral reefs.
“My husband who has supported me in terms of career and family in all the years, I currently only every three to four months,” she says. However, according to its mandate, in Geneva, they return back to India. As long as she was still in Switzerland, enjoy it, Hiking and Cycling. Because that is no longer in the 8-million metropolis of then, unfortunately, possible.
Created: 23.11.2019, 10:28 PM
