One stamp one story: Inflamed Bowel

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Each stamp has a story to tell. These are lucky few, where I have either one, or just a few to weave a story. These medical themes may be rare, uncommon, or out of sight for those who do not have them. Further, their limited advocacy may have led to only a small number of postage stamp issues. Yet, these short-stories need a voice.

There are three interesting aspects about the above stamp. First about who has issued it, second what does it depict, and last why we need to know about it.

Who ?

Yugoslavia, a federation-country in Central Europe was in existence from 1918 to 1992. Today it consists of its seven successors – Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina (FBiH). While the first six in the list, have their own postal departments, FBiH has three postal authorities, one each for for its Bosnian (50%), Serb (30%) and Croatian (15%) ethnicities. Above postage stamp is issued by Croatian postal authority, based in city of Mostar, one of the three constituents. Since 2011 postage stamps from this authority indicate FBiH and HP Mostar on its stamps.

What ?

The stamp depicts a photograph by Samir Hadžić. The photograph is titled “Albero Della Vita” or “Tree of Life”. Tree as a symbol of life, that connects underworld with heaven, is a cross-cutting concept across various cultures. It is a symbol of nature, strength, wisdom, and eternal life. Here in context of disease, tree of life is a symbol of hope.

Why ?

Inflammatory Bowel diseases (or IBD) is a group of diseases of the intestine. These diseases, which usually begin when a person is young, cause long term symptoms of diarrhoea, pain in abdomen and weight loss. Most patients with IBD are young, and live in the Northern hemisphere. IBD has two major forms, Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, that has issued this postage stamp has a population of a little over 3 million, and about 1400 patients with IBD. In 2010, European Federation of Crohn´s and Ulcerative Colitis Associations chose 19th May as World IBD day. Further, they chose purple-ribbon as their symbol.

For a person with IBD, life is a struggle with frequent diarrhoea, abdominal pain, weight-loss and fever. The condition needs life-long medicines, and monitoring. Further, those with the disease have a higher chance than others of colon cancer. There are about 5 million estimated number of individuals with IBD across the world, most of whom reside in high income countries.

In my knowledge and based on internet search, till-date this is the only purple-ribbon IBD postage stamp. Same stamp was also issued by serb counterpart of FBiH (Poste Srpske a.d. Banjaluka) and Bosnian counterpart (BH post) on the same date. Hope to present all three versions sometime soon !!!