Misha Friedman won PixPalace ANI-2011 with his report on Tuberculosis Epidemic in the former Soviet Union. He received a prize of € 5,000.
Tuberculosis Epidemic in the former Soviet Union
Misha Friedman
Tuberculosis is again a very deadly disease – especially in the former Soviet Union. The number of patients with very difficult forms of tuberculosis is growing steadily in that part of the world. Officials from health organizations say it is an epidemic and it is not slowing down. More and more patients are found to have the non-treatable form of tuberculosis – XDR (extensively drug-resistant).
Though Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia are very different, they have one thing in common – people are not treated properly, and people are not aware that tuberculosis does not have to be so deadly.
If only more time would be spent on educating the population, thus preventing the disease from spreading. Instead, those who become sick also become stigmatized, relatives turn away, neighbors stop speaking. They spend months in prison-like clinics, where equipment is outdated and medical and nursing staff are just as poor as their patients. Many leave without finishing their treatment and many come back and back and back.
In that part of the world, unemployment levels are high, most young people are jobless and spend their time taking drugs, using the same needles, having unprotected sex. Many end up HIV positive. But they do not die from developing AIDS, they die much quicker – from tuberculosis. Most of them do not even know they are sick, till it is too late.
I began working on this project in 2008 in Russia’s Chechnya. Since then, I continued in Central Asia and Ukraine.
Misha Friedman
I am a New York based photographer, born in Moldova, then part of the Soviet Union. I studied economics and political science in university and worked as an aid worker with MSF and a photographer all across the world.
