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Christiaan van Vuuren, a.k.a. the Fully Sick Rapper, started making YouTube videos while placed in quarantine for MDR-TB. Earlier this week we ran his first post where his explained (in rap) how he became infected. Here is his second post where he sings about a journalist, "Leila", who interviewed him after his first video went viral.
Christiaan was born in Australia but both of his parents are originally from South Africa – hence the very South African name. Christiaan contracted the virus while holidaying in South America, and was diagnosed with tuberculosis in December 2009. In 2010 it was discovered that Christiaan actually had multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. After spending nearly seven months in isolation, plus many more taking a host of TB drugs, Christiaan is nearly at the end of his treatment.
He also kept a blog of his experiences: you can read it here.
TB in South Africa
Tuberculosis remains the leading natural cause of death in South Africa, which continues to rank as one of the world’s 20 countries high TB burden countries.
With about 490,000 cases of TB diagnosed annually, thousands of South Africans are treated for TB every year and for some, it won't be the first time. About 14% of previously treated TB patients in South Africa will develop multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
MDR-TB is resistant to the two most common first-line TB drugs, andcan develop when patients can't (or don't)complete their six-month course of first-line TB treatment. Globally, about 5% of TB patients have the MDR strain.
Find out how normal people cope while living with MDR-TB in Swaziland, Uganda, Australia and India when they share their stories as part of the Medecins San Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) blogging project, TB and ME.
Read more:
TB and the girl next door
