Published On January 30, 2015
Physician and photographer Miguel Ribeiro practiced in South Africa in the 1980s. He photographed ailments he saw among the poor—including this woman with lymphedema, characterized by fluid buildup and extreme swelling. In many ways, South Africa is a different country since apartheid fell 20 years ago. But a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that health care in the country needs radical changes. The disparity of care between wealthy and poor is extremely wide and getting wider. Physicians are leaving the country in record numbers, and South African epidemics of HIV and tuberculosis are among the worst in the world.
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