The first Ethiopian patients ever to be treated for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis by the Ethiopian National TB Program pose with CHC director Dr. Sok Thim (third from left) and Dr. Ridwan Bushra (bottom right), the head of the Ethiopian MDR-TB program. The doctors and a nurse from St. Peter’s Hospital in Addis Ababa (far right) join the happy group, who all became smear negative after three months of therapy.

With support from the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, and donation of antibiotics from Eli Lilly Corporation, the Global Health Committee, in cooperation with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, has brought treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis to Ethiopian patients for the first time.

Lessons learned from years of treating MDR-TB in Cambodia were directly transferred in an extraordinary colleague-to-colleague exchange in Ethiopia and in Cambodia, resulting in a rapid uptake of knowledge and procedures by the Ethiopian health care workers. This unique partnership is showing how MDR-TB can be effectively treated even in poor countries with few resources.

Just a few months after the start of treatment, the first cohort of Ethiopian men and women with MDR-TB (pictured) are obviously feeling better and looking well. The traces of tuberculosis are gone from their sputum and the patients are on their way to a full cure. They are among the lucky ones to receive antibiotics and care from Ethiopian doctors who trained with CHC/GHC staff in Ethiopia in October and in Cambodia in January 2009, and then returned to Addis Ababa to start the first ever MDR-TB treatment project in their country.

“MDR drugs were promised to Ethiopia by international agencies almost a year ago, but have been held up due to unpardonable bureaucracy. The CHC/GHC and the Jolie-Pitt and Annenberg Foundations, along with Eli Lilly stepped in to fill the gap. The capacity in the country to treat MDR TB is growing by leaps and bounds and is establishing a new international model to deal with the MDR TB emergency,” says Anne Goldfeld, MD, the cofounder of the CHC/GHC.

However, these patients are only a fraction of those who need treatment, says Goldfeld. “It is unacceptable that people are dying from a curable infectious disease. Ethiopia is becoming a leader in Africa in the treatment of MDR-TB, and the GHC will continue to do whatever it takes to obtain the necessary medicines and provide access to care for all of the estimated 6000 Ethiopians a year with the disease.”