Last year I posted a link to this picture on World AIDS Day. This year I thought I would post the actual picture. I don't exactly have permission to post this image, but I hope that Partners in Health (PIH) would not be mad, because I always use it to help patients in the spirit of PIH's treatment model of free health care for the world's neediest patients. We actually have posters on the walls of our clinic in Busia with this same picture along with explanations in Swahili of the benefits of ARVs for patients with AIDS.
The picture is of a Haitian man with HIV and TB who was (and presumably still is) a patient in the Partners in Health clinic in central Haiti. The left is a "before" image, when he was sick with HIV and TB. The right side is the "after" image, taken just six months later, after he was treated for TB and started on antiretrovirals (ARVs). I generally show this picture to patients before starting them on ARVS. I think it expresses the power of ARV treatment better than any speech I could come up with.
1 comment:
a picture's worth 1000 words
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