MEHRUNISSA'S STORY

• Mehrunnisa was 15 years old when she suddenly started to wither away, plagued by a slight fever, cough and headache in a small village called Dhanni
• When taken to the Muzaffarabad district hospital she was diagnosed promptly and correctly with having TB of the brain
• Unable to afford her treatment, her father took her back home
• Soon after she was brought to our Control Unit on a charpoy - unconscious, arms and legs paralysed
• Not wanting to admit her in the hospital, her family sought guidance for treatment they could administer to her at home
• For 12 consecutive days, our Leprosy Technician walked uphill for one and a half hours to assist Mehrunissa's mother with the injection preparation
• Two weeks later Mehrunissa started eating solid food
• 18 months later, she was seen in Neelam Valley, atop a mountain slope, tending to her goats
  

YAMEEN'S STORY

• Tall and fair Yameen was the much respected 16-year old captain of Astore's high school cricket team when he confessed to not having fun doing anything anymore
• He had a slight cough and fever, but a normal appetite
• We gave him a sputum container to bring back the next morning
• The diagnosis: Highly positive sputum - Pulmonary Tuberculosis
• He underwent 8 months of treatment, continuing all the while with his schooling and cricket
• His classmates were kept under observation and no secondary case resulted
• Yameen still recalls his encounter with us, terming it a happy memory from his youth
  

SIDDIQUE & KAMILA'S STORY

• 17-year old Siddique was the only ray of hope in a household comprising his widowed mother, Kamila and six other siblings
• He bravely stepped into his father's shoes and earned daily bread for the family while Kamila tended the goats and grew the maize
• Until one day, when she came home to find him lying on a charpoy, pale, blood splattered on the floor beneath him
• He was admitted to the district hospital, strictly isolated, and non-responsive to standard anti-TB drugs
• The family could not afford the course with the expensive second line drugs and the doctor was reluctant to treat Siddique without payment
• We heard about Siddique and found the funds through a kind industrialist to pay for his treatment
• He was sent back to his mother, still undergoing treatment and forbidden to work for another 9 months after which he would be cured
• It was not to be. 4 months later he died with a constitution so weak, it could not withstand the side effects of the alternate treatment. If Siddique had only received the treatment earlier, his mother would still have had her ray of hope