MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS CHAPTER ANALYSIS

PART III - MEDICOS AVENTUREROS

CHAPTER 13

Summary

This chapter discusses the concept of an epidemiological map and the rise of TB in Haiti as a result of the military junta. An epidemiological map is based on what makes people sick and what kills them and in what numbers and at what ages. It could be color-coded into two colors: one would stand for populations that tend to die in their seventies of age-related illnesses; the other would stand for groups who on the average die ten and even forty years earlier from violence, hunger, and infectious diseases that medical science knows how to prevent and treat, if not always to cure. Farmer says there is a line dividing the two color-coded parts which he calls the “epi line.” Most of Haiti would bear the color of ill health, but parts of the hills above Port-au-Prince would be a patch of well-being. The map of the United States would contrast with large areas of well-being speckled with disease.

Meager incomes don’t guarantee abysmal health statistics, but the two usually go hand-in-hand. Also, many of the groups who live on the wrong side of the epi divide have brown or black skin. What they all have in common is poverty - absolute poverty - meaning the lack of almost any necessity like clean water and shoes, medicine, and food.

Tuberculosis vividly illustrates the great epi divide. This is a dreadful and lethal disease if untreated. Fortunately, there are good and inexpensive “first-line” TB drugs existing. These drugs must be administered for several months, but they almost always cure.......

Notes

This short chapter explains how poverty gives rise to disease, especially to TB and most horribly to MDR. It is a ......

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