You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Hey short waivers, Aaron Scott here.

And today we've got science desk reporter Ari Daniel with us.

Hello Ari.

Hey Aaron.

So you've been reporting on Ukraine and in particular how progress made from decades

of fighting tuberculosis may be erased in a matter of weeks.

And just as a reminder, TV is a bacterium that mostly affects the lungs.

What was the most deadly infectious disease in the world until COVID?

Exactly.

And in my reporting, I found that there are all sorts of ways that the war in Ukraine

is impacting public health.

I've been talking with medical professionals there, including Olga Konstantinovska.

She's a doctor who'd been living in Harkiv in Northeastern Ukraine.

She worked at a couple different tuberculosis hospitals.

And she said to me that before the war, people from all around Harkiv, some 2.5 million

citizens, would go to a dispensary to be screened for the disease.

She actually evacuated with her daughter several weeks back.

Now she tells me that doctors are having a hard time getting to the hospital in Harkiv.

It's too dangerous to move about outside.

Public transit is shuttered and the roads are ravaged in her words destroyed.

One of the physicians she knows walks a total of three hours each day to get to and from

...