Alisha Wainwright

So let me describe the scale of the challenge of drug-resistant TB and the funding gap for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care.

But there's also hope here with so much progress that's already been made and some breakthroughs on the horizon.

So let's give a general definition of tuberculosis.

What is it and how does it spread?

I think when I was preparing for this episode, I hadn't fully understood that many people carry TB with them and are asymptomatic.

That was new information to me.

I was aware that

TB was a slow-moving disease sometimes.

It took people a long time to either recover from it or succumb to it.

But I hadn't considered that you could be carrying this germ with you in a nodule in your lungs for maybe even decades before you found yourself having active TB.

So what are the regions and demographics or other groups that are particularly vulnerable to tuberculosis?

Because so many people are walking around asymptomatic and they might not even know it, how are we diagnosing TB?

Got it.

So it's not just spit.

It's almost like...

The emergence of drug-resistant strains has complicated the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis.

So to get a personal perspective on this, we spoke to Endalkachu Fakadu, or Endi.

In 2004, Endi was a student in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, when he was diagnosed with TB.

But when first-line treatment didn't work, it was the start of a years-long journey to diagnose and treat drug-resistant TB.

Endy survived and now works as a pharmacist and advocate for TB treatment.