It’s our last day in Lima, Peru. This trip has been exciting and productive although brief. It has been a privilege to collaborate with Socios en Salud which has a 20 year history of working on behalf of people living with tuberculosis. We are hopeful that by implementing FAST, we will be able to demonstrate a decreased rate of TB infection in health care workers in a large urban hospital. This is because most nosocomial TB transmission comes from the unsuspected TB cases and by finding those patients FAST and getting them on effective therapy, health workers will be infected with TB less frequently. This is extremely important in the context of drug-resistant TB. Finally, today we are going to visit a prison for a possible research project implementing FAST.
I’m going to leave you with a few thoughts from the exclusive, seaside neighborhood of Miraflores, where our hotel is located. Miraflores reminds me of La Jolla, California, except with more high-rises.
Are there flores in Miraflores? I asked the taxi driver.
No, he laughed. In Miraflores, there are no flores to mira.
No flores? How sad.
But not true. There are many flores in Miraflores.
Where there are no flores is in Carabayllo.
*Carabayllo is a poor slum with high rates of tuberculosis where Socios en Salud has been working for two decades.
Thanks so much for reading! Writing/reading blog posts does take time and we all know that time is in short supply. We’ll all get much more out of them if they lead to discussion/dialogue. If you found this post useful and wouldn’t mind leaving a comment/sharing on social media, that would be great. Thank so much! Best regards, Phil
