Finalist
Christian Holst
Reportage by Getty Images
"Half a Century Without Freedom - Life under the Military Regime of Burma"
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A naked, mentally ill, man lies on a pedestrian overpass in downtown Rangoon. The junta spends less than $1 per citizen per year on health care. Hospitals lack medicine. Doctors and nurses are grossly underpaid and treat people according to the amount of “lunch money” the patients are able to provide. The patients themselves pay for more than 90% of health expenditures, which means that proper healthcare is out of reach for the vast population of the country.
Half of all Asia's malaria deaths occur in Burma (Myanmar); the country has some of the world’s deadliest strains of TB; and the regime has a potentially devastating HIV epidemic on its hands. The government’s neglect and unwillingness to accept foreign aid means that, at the very most, only a fifth of the people infected with HIV have access to treatment.
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