TB vs. Swine Flu

You walk into a room and something smells like egg fart, but once you remain in the room for about 3 minutes, you don’t notice the smell much anymore. Ever had a similar experience? This is because we are able to adapt and create a new baseline of sorts. I’ve always thought that was an interesting, tangible phenomenon with that occurs with our sense of smell, and I think that concept can be applied to how we deal with all types of problems. Why else would we so commonly use the phrase, “Just give it time.” The more familiar we are with something, the longer since the initial insult, the less sad or scary the effect.

When I was in Mokhotlong, I met a saucy, chatty, and delightful woman. She works for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and serves as a liaison between Baylor and the Lesotho government. She is very intelligent, and I really enjoyed her. However, when we were driving our longest drive to a clinic, she started to talk about how she was scared about getting Swine Flu. I responded—“Why are you scared of Swine Flu? I’m scared of getting TB?” She quickly replied, “I’m not scared of TB. If I get TB, I take some medicine and it goes away.”

This is the problem with our coping mechanism that allows us to adjust with time and familiarity. Tuberculosis is a serious, often deadly if untreated, infection that can cause disease anywhere from the lungs (most commonly) to the brain (with meningitis). It requires at least 6 months of a multi-drug regimen, and there are forms of Multi-Drug Resistant TB as well. It is far from a simple fix in pill format. Swine Flu (or H1N1), on the other hand, has turned out, currently at least, to not cause the fatalities feared like the Spanish Influenza, and instead is appearing much more like our typical seasonal flu. All our medications can really do is shorten the duration of illness by a day or two, and while it can certainly be serious for anyone, in particular the very young and very old, it more often than not resolves on its own in about a week.

But, in Lesotho, TB is commonplace, while Swine Flu is new and scary. To me, it would have been an obvious answer which disease I’d chose to contract. In this world, however, it’s not that simple.