Suruz Ali

Suruz Ali, 25, sits in the non-paying sick ward at the National Institute (and Hospital) of Chest Diseases in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has been in the hospital for the last six months and has been suffering from tuberculosis since 2012. At one point, he was taking his medication at home in order to cure himself of his MDR-TB (multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis), but he failed to continue to take it. Now he has returned to the hospital. TB is a world-wide public health problem. The incidence of TB is much higher in developing countries, such as Bangladesh, than in the developed world. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 570,000 people are currently suffering from TB in Bangladesh and every year more than 300,000 people develop TB. There are some 66,000 TB-related deaths in Bangladesh each year. —Probal Rashid