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<title>MAP Joins the Fight Against Drug Resistant TB</title>
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<td width="100%" colspan="3" height="57"><font color="#008000"><a
name="Disease Prevention and Eradication">Disease Prevention and Eradication</a><br>
</font><big><big><big><strong><font color="#000000">MAP Joins the Fight Against
Drug-Resistant TB</font></strong></big></big></big></td>
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<td width="49%" rowspan="3" style="vertical-align: top" height="898">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
LIMA, Peru - &quot;They were left to die,&quot; says one Peruvian health worker of the
Morales family. The MAP came with a powerful new combination of drugs, turning what had
been a picture of hopeless despair into a family celebration.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; MAP has emerged as a formidable player in the war against a new,
rapidly spreading form of tuberculosis (TB) that is resistant to the old
&quot;standby&quot; antibiotics. The disease, called MDRTB (multi-drug-resistant
tuberculosis), leaves victims gasping for breath with <em>no remedy</em> from conventional
treatment.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There are victims like the Morales family. Living in a shantytown in
rural Peru, one of four Morales sisters slowly died after she failed to respond to usually
reliable tuberculosis treatment. The disease then struck five other family members.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;These were young adults,&quot; says health worker Jennifer Furin,
who has seen the devastation caused by MDRTB in Peru and elsewhere. &quot;But they could
no longer work or eat. They were given up for dead.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Death
indeed would have won, except for the timely arrival of high potency antibiotics like
Ofloxacin supplied by MAP. The treatment program calls for seven such medicines daily for
two years. The costs are large normally out of the question for a poor Peruvian family.
But the love of Christ expressed through the giving of MAP donors supplied the drugs for
the treatment of the Morales family and others in their village.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Because of the treatment, three of the sisters and two of their
husbands were cured, are back at work, and now have hope for their <p align="left"><em><font
color="#008000">&quot;We need to prevent a global disaster, and we wouldn't be able to do
this without an organization such as MAP. They are a godsend.&quot;<small><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jennifer Furin, Partners in Health </small></font></em></td>
<td width="51%" height="327" colspan="2" style="vertical-align: top"><p align="center"><img
src="../../../images/graphics/mir34.jpg" width="388" height="285"
alt="mir34.jpg (95593 bytes)"></p>
<p align="center"><em><font face="Georgia"><br>
<small><small>MAP medicines can save whole Peruvian families from the terror of
drug-resistant TB.</small></small></font></em></td>
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<td width="61%" height="553">future,&quot; reports Furin. &quot;Previously this put a
death sentence on people solely for where they live. The poor ultimately suffer.&quot;
With treatment, however, the cure rate can be as high as <em>80 percent</em>.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To continue happy endings like these, MAP must escalte the war--and
receive financial help to place the new antibiotics that are the only known weapon against
MDRTB. In 1996, 3 million people died from normal TB alone around the world. Yet health
officials call the highly contagious MDRTB and even greater nightmare.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;This is an epidemic that could spread,&quot; says Furin. &quot;We
need to prevent a global disaster, and we wouldn't be able to do this without an
organization such as MAP. They are a godsend.&quot;<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; God bless the supporters of MAP, whose gifts were used by our Lord as a
means to save lives. Thousands more around the world await such medicines. Please pray MAP
receives the funds necessary to respond with health and hope.</td>
<td width="25%" height="553"
style="vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(115,172,134); border-left: thick groove rgb(0,128,0)"><p
align="center">In Memoriam:<br>
Dr. Gustav Hemwall<br>
1908 - 1998</p>
<p align="left">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dr. Gustav Hemwall, a foundaing board member of MAP
International, died of a stroke in St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Dr. Hemwall
made more than 25 trips to Honduras, most recently in the spring of 1997 when he was 89
years old.<br>
Ray Knighton, founder of MAP and close friend of the Hemwalls, recalls a quote from the
great theologian, William Barklay: &quot;To Jesus, the most important thing in the world
was not the correct performance of a ritual, but the spontaneous answer to the cry of
human need.&quot; &quot;My friend Gus would have said 'Amen' to that,: adds Dr. Knighton.<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dr. Hemwall is survived by his wife, four daughters, 11
grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.</td>
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