Dr. Eva Moya from the University of Texas at El Paso. (Diego Davila/Borderzine.com)

Tuberculosis wanes in the US but remains a threat in Mexico

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EL PASO – Tuberculosis has for a long time been a serious but waning disease in the United States with less severe complications in the large majority of cases, while people in other countries suffer greatly and die from a lack of sanitation, medical resources and information about this illness. Even though this lethal infection is on the decline in the United States, it is still latent in more than one third of the world’s population. Mexico is one of the many other countries affected to a much greater degree. According to Professor Eva Moya, Ph.D., from the University of Texas at El Paso, although most people infected in the United States will recover from primary TB without further evidence of the disease, there are still deaths related to this disease. In 2011 there were more than 500 cases that resulted in deaths in he U.S. Unfortunately the number is much higher in Mexico where on average a Mexican man or woman dies from tuberculosis every six hours.

Nuestra Casa exhibition at the Univeersity of Texas at El Paso. (Danya Hernandez/Borderzine.com)

Tuberculosis cases are more plentiful in states along the U.S.-México border

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EL PASO — For three years a woman roamed the border region with an infectious disease, not knowing her health kept deteriorating and that she was endangering those closest to her. This is the story of Rachel Orduño, a social work graduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso, who in 2003 began having a recurring cough. Doctors of both sides of the El Paso-Cd. Juarez border region diagnosed and treated her for everything from bronchitis, pneumonia, to the common cold. “I began with the most common symptoms. Continuous cough, weight loss due to lack of appetite, sweating at night and then I begin having trouble breathing,” Orduño said.