#benedict moran

In Papua New Guinea approximately 85% of people live in rural areas and rates of education are still very low. In many parts of the country, traditional beliefs, including the belief in sorcery, is still strong. When a family member dies—even from a documented sickness like malaria or tuberculosis—suspicion may still fall upon a family member or a neighbor. Accused of witchcraft, their life is in immediate danger. In the last couple of years, hundreds of people have been killed at the hands of family members or mobs, many of them tortured to death.

In Goroka, in Eastern Highlands, local civil society groups evacuate on average 15 people per week accused of witchcraft. In regional capitals, these victims find support and the protection of federal police. For those who survive an attack, injuries can be life-long. Pictured here, a woman who was beaten by her clan members after she was suspected of casting a spell, causing the illness of a local official. The perpetrators backed down only after her husband’s family threatened revenge.

Kerema province, in Papua New Guinea, is one of three “hot zones” where tuberculosis is on the rise. The rate of infection here is nearly three times the national average, and multiple drug resistant TB, or MDR-TB, and even extreme drug-resistant TB, is prevalent, and without treatment the patient will not survive. The high rate of TB is in part due to patients stopping the treatment before it is completed. Patients with MDR-TB have to undergo a grueling, two-year treatment program which include daily injections and swallowing between 10 to 15 large pills in the morning. Young kids, like Elisa, pictured, find the treatment extremely difficult. On this day, it took Elisa’s mother and an MSF nurse 20 minutes to prod her into swallowing the pills. Then came the injection.

Every year, more than 1.5 million people worldwide die of tuberculosis (TB). Here in Papua New Guinea, TB is one of the top three diseases in terms of hospital admissions. With 85 percent of people living in rural areas, lack of access to treatment and limited healthcare resources contribute to its spread—and the emerging threat of drug-resistant, and extreme drug-resistant TB. The government of Papua New Guinea established an emergency task force in 2014 to deal with this developing crisis, and named three provinces as hot zones: Western, National Capital District, and Gulf Province. The French medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières—MSF) has set up a clinic in Kerema, pictured here, in Gulf Province. The prevalence rate here is estimated to be 1075-1450/100,000—or three times the national average.