Romania is the site of one of Europe and Central Asia’s worst tuberculosis (TB) epidemics. Cure rates for sensitive as well as M/XDR-TB (Multidrug and Extensively Drug-Resistant TB) are poor. TB is a social disease that is influenced by one’s overall quality of life. While patients of all economic classes are becoming infected, those without social and economic support face great difficulty getting cured. Patients in the second (outpatient) phase of treatment frequently abandon treatment and there is no system of casework and follow-up to help them complete treatment. This especially affects poor and working-class patients who must return to work. Romanian TB control is poorly funded and the problem lacks public awareness. Medication shortages are frequent and patients with TB face the stigma of having a disease still considered incurable and shameful (ruşinos) by many. This report is based on over two years of ethnographic research in Romania including surveys, interviews and visits to multiple hospitals, sanatoria and clinics.
Jonathan J. Stillo, of the City University of New York Graduate Center, was a 2011-2012 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) [8] fellow.
