Doctor de Leon is a Mexican paediatrician who has dedicated her life to saving other people's lives particularly the youngest and most vulnerable of any society - the children. Nine months ago, she developed a cough that her colleagues diagnosed as an allergy. Overall, her health was deteriorating, she lost weight day-by-day despite her efforts to nourish herself the best that she could. Since she was not feeling well, she ordered the sputum smear exams for herself, and they came back positive. Read more
She started TB treatment but her sputum smears and her health status did not improve and after six months of anti-TB treatment, a first-line drugs sensitivity test (DST) result came back positive for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
On 22 March 2010, two days before the World TB Day, Dr de Leon was admitted to a specialty hospital in Mexico City with haemoptysis, weight of 99 pounds and a chest x-ray which showed 10mm cavities.
On the World TB Day 2010, and every day for that matter, Dr de Leon could be providing care to patients affected by tuberculosis or attending the different events planned for this day in the country. Instead, she is a patient in isolation, waiting and hoping that her TB status is not extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
Dr de Leon wants to be cured and will continue her fight to live, not only for herself and her mission in life but also to be able to see her two young children, three and four years old, grow up.
Alberto Colorado - CNS
Published in:
Elites TV News, USA
Citizen News Service (CNS), India/Thailand
Wikio.com, U k
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Comment: Doctor de Leon and anti-TB drug resistance (2)
ReplyDeleteDr Kajal Krishna Banik
Honorary Editor, Journal of Indian Medical Association (JIMA) 2009
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[Mods note: Below is a comment to a post of Alberto Colorado, available online at: http://www.citizen-news.org/2010/04/doctor-de-leon-and-anti-tb-drug.html . More comments are welcome. Thanks]
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Dear Stop-TB members,
It's a heart touching real life story (online at: http://www.citizen-news.org/2010/04/doctor-de-leon-and-anti-tb-drug.html ).
I wish a very speedy and healthy recovery of Dr de Leon.
Dr Leon has proved that she tried from the core of her heart to eliminate the problem of TB from our society. It's very sad that she herself got the disease [and possibly a difficult-to-treat form of TB]. I wish that all possible steps will be taken to take her out from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) stage and it will not go to the stage of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
Let's all pray for her.
Wish you all the best Dr de Leon.
Regards
Dr Kajal Krishna Banik
Hony Editor, Journal of Indian Medical Association (JIMA)2009
WHO Fellow
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Comment: Doctor de Leon and anti-TB drug resistance (3)
ReplyDeleteMuherman Harun, Indonesia
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[Mods note: Below is a comment to a post of Alberto Colorado, available online at: http://www.citizen-news.org/2010/04/doctor-de-leon-and-anti-tb-drug.html . More comments are welcome. Thanks]
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Dear Stop-TB members,
In medicine, we never know for sure what is the right treatment on a
certain time or condition. Doctor de Leon was suffering from lung
tuberculosis with 10 mm cavities on a chest X-ray taken on 22 March
2010. This was the condition after she treated herself 6 months earlier.
The first chest X-ray would likely have shown larger cavities. After a while she had sputum smear examinations which came back positive.
Eventually it was shown that the bacilli were multi-drug resistant (MDR-TB).
There is no reason for Dr de Leon to fear extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) as she had only taken first-line anti-TB drugs before.
Nowadays MDR-TB (if resistant to isoniazid and rifampicin alone) can
reasonably be cured completely if the right drugs are given according to the right dose during a right period.
We all hope and trust that Dr de Leon will be cured completely and we wish her all the best, not only to personally see her children grow up, but also that she may continue her excellent services among the most vulnerable children in the society.
HAPPY EASTER.
Muherman Harun
Indonesia