Louie was diagnosed at age 24 with tuberculosis (TB) meningitis (tuberculosis in the brain). At the time, she had been planning to take her board exam to become an architect and to start her career. Instead, she found herself going through years of treatment and its debilitating side effects for TB and then multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).
Morgana traveled to the Philippines for Ground Media to meet Louie and her husband for a series of stories they produced about the impact of The Global Fund.
Louie was diagnosed at age 24 with tuberculosis (TB) meningitis (tuberculosis in the brain). At the time, she had been planning to take her board exam to become an architect and to start her career. Instead, she found herself going through years of treatment and its debilitating side effects for TB and then multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). TB drugs can cause severe side-effects; during her difficult treatment, she lost her vision permanently.
When she discovered that normal TB drugs did not work for her, Louie was able to get a proper diagnosis for her MDR-TB and full, free treatment at a clinic funded by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Now Louie is involved in national and international disability advocacy. In her TB patient treatment advocacy work, Louie promotes patient empowerment and universal access to treatment including those with disability. She is also married and a mother.
Louie has a message: ending TB is within our reach, but to do this “we need to keep investing in Global Fund.”
Louie is a speaker for the Global Fund's advocate network established in 2011 to unite voices and efforts from all over the world to support a fully funded Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Global Fund is a 21st-century partnership organization designed to accelerate the end of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics. Founded in 2002, the Global Fund is a partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and people affected by the diseases. The Global Fund raises and invests nearly US$4 billion a year to support programs run by local experts in countries and communities most in need. The Global Fund is up for replenishment this year. That means the donors of the fund are deciding how much they are going to put into it for 2017 to 2019. Ground Media and their client wanted to capture success stories leading up to the replenishment meeting to explain to donors why the fund is important and what impact it has made over the last few years.