Reverend Maxwell Kapachawo’s advocacy is rooted in a deeply personal experience of illness, loss and stigma.
A pastor and a person living openly with HIV, Maxwell has survived pulmonary tuberculosis twice. His second experience with TB was particularly difficult: four sputum tests came back negative despite severe symptoms, and it was only after travelling nearly 100 kilometres to a mission hospital for a chest X-ray that he finally received a diagnosis. The journey to treatment was complicated by limited access to diagnostics, medicines and health services.
But for Maxwell, the hardest part of TB was not only the disease itself. It was the stigma that followed him into the community and, most painfully, into his place of worship. As his treatment caused visible side effects, people began talking about him and isolating him. Even members of his church hesitated to take his hand during Holy Communion. Some saw his illness as a punishment from God. His wife was his greatest source of support, even as she herself faced stigma because of his HIV and TB diagnoses. She later died from TB following delayed diagnosis and treatment.
These experiences transformed Maxwell’s understanding of what it means to fight TB. He speaks openly about the need to challenge the myths and the silence surrounding TB, and the ways stigma can isolate people.
Today, Maxwell advocates for a people-centred TB response that recognises the human cost of delayed diagnosis, treatment barriers and stigma. He believes communities need better information, health systems need greater investment, and TB survivors must have a stronger voice in shaping the response.
For Maxwell, the fight to end TB is ultimately a fight for dignity: for people to be diagnosed in time, treated with compassion, supported by their communities, and never made to feel that illness has made them less worthy of belonging.