EPIDEMIC: Tuberculosis in the South African Gold Mining Community

This photo is part of the project “EPIDEMIC: Tuberculosis in the South African Gold Mining Community,” which will be exhibited at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C., opening on Friday March 20. The project was done as part of the International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellowship based at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Last year 100,000 people died of TB in South Africa and no community in the country is more affected by tuberculosis than gold miners. The mine companies have historically had very poor health care programs in place and workers are on their own once they leave the mines. With little education about TB or access to health care, miners are forced to live with, and often die from, this debilitating. Here, women pray at the African Gospel Church in Bakuba, a community that is full with former miners who have returned home. Tuberculosis can stay dormant in a person’s body for years without them knowing, putting their family at risk of catching the disease. More pictures can be seen on David Rochkind’s site.