Let me tell you about MAM now, the organisation I’m responsible to.
They could sort out the NHS with their energy and imagination. The picture above shows you where the current clinics are and there are new clinics for IVDU and in areas in Myanmar where limited or no services are available being built/developed and importantly, limited viral load testing as a routine at 6m may start. Some hepatitis C drugs have been donated – they all have GT3 and we will have sufficient drug for 12w of SOF/DAC: no ribavirin.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in MAM’s ambitions and achievements. A FibroScan has also been donated. Of course, as always there are oddities, there is a slit-lamp for CMV retinitis (an American ophthalmologist has been coming for over a decade and set the programme up – CMV is common) and a brand-new USS (although no-one feels confident enough to use it).
What’s bad for me? You shower whenever you can find a shower, and like this morning there’s no water and hasn’t been for 24h. Electricity comes and goes. A 20-minute walk at 6.30am makes you want to have a shower: deodorant is essential. There is little Wi-Fi, something we take for granted, and of course you don’t have your family. But from my ‘go-to’ Plaza I can Face-Time and Skype and stay in contact with the Western world and my much-missed wife (and buy Gorgonzola and a bottle of wine!). Crossing the road is also equivalent to Russian roulette. But there are too many wonderful positives to mention: the people, the food, the country, and the belief that things will get better for all.
Till next week,
Ed
