Tuberculosis is  a rare disease in the part of my country i reside. Commonly diagnosed among people living positively. The issue is therefore no trivial one as much as malaria or HIV/AIDS had been in the past decade.

Nontheless, certain measures have been put in place to curb to the minimum level the deadly air borne.

The primary modus operandi applied in the erradication of tuberculosis within my locality and the nation at large, is the creation of substantial awareness about the disease using all forms of the media in propagating our course.

Our awareness campaign gives certain basic info's about the disease as; prevalent symptoms, preventive measures and alternative cure.

Most appreciable is the fact that free health care service is been delivered to all who show symptoms or are diagnosed as having the disease.

These measures highlighted above are the best of our thoughts in curbing tuberculosis. Since it has produced certain appreciable results, we solicite the heat up of this measure in combating tuberculosis, to the grass root level.

from Oliver Eze

In Kaduna, Nigeria.

At Wired & Unplugged  Internet Coffeehouse here on the river in the little community of Snohomish just north of Seattle, Washington USA, Snohomish RESULTS and the Snohomish County Health District (a community north of seattle)  held very inspiring event to honor World Tuberculosis Day (TB). The region’s ONE members came out for support.

TB is the leading cause of death worldwide among women . . . over nine million people are infected and  nearly  two million lives are lost to TB  globally .  Over one-third of the population of the earth has been exposed to the bacterium and is according to the World Health Organization, a new case develops every second.    Not everyone infected develops into the full blown disease, but one in ten of the latent carries will develop into full-blown  TB , and without prompt and thorough care, will die from this disease. 

Songs were shared and dedicated to loved ones lost... Stories were shared of grandparents, parents, and individuals themselves who were residents of sanitoriums  in the past century, one who was an inpatient many years ago at the same Denver facility that treated Andrew Speaker last year, the lawyer who made news for the cross-atlantic flight with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.  A point was made by the representative of the Health District that the high altitude of Denver, the thinner air of this mile-high city contributing to the care of  TB  patients.  In America in the 30’s and 40’s this disease was referred to as “consumption” as it consumes the body from the inside, a dreadful airborne illness.  Some of those who shared were mothers of young children, who saw their children once a month thru a window of the building, for months or even years at a time.

Our Snohomish group leader, Teresa Rugg, experienced deep personal loss when her close friend  Dr. Claudia  Lacson, a  close friend from graduate school, lost her life to TB here in America just three  and a half years ago. She was married to Romel,  who, ironically was a  behavioral scientist   at the  Center for  Disease  Control  and Prevention at the time of Claudia's death. They also lost their baby Emma, who was born prematurely due to this tragedy.  Romel Lacson has started a project called the TB PhotoVoice in which cameras are given to people affected by TB and they share their reflections to this preventable and curable disease. The  website  is  www.tbphotovoice.org. We still have resolutions and bills that are active this year for funding of TB, both domestically and globally here: http://capwiz.com/results/callalert/index.tt?alertid=10211816. 

Aaron Reardon,  the County Executive here in Snohomish County, proclaimed March 24th  as the first annual  World TB Day.   Thank you, and great job  Snohomish RESULTS!Stay close,sammi in seattle

Ghana celebrated the World TB day in style, involving all stakeholders at all level to assure greater participation of all sectors. ‘I am stopping TB’ a theme that calls for immense support for TB control at various levels, indicating that everyone has a role to play in the control of this old age disease.

The theme which is a 2 years campaign call for concerted effort by all to join hands in stopping TB and that TB control is no longer a sole priority of the health professionals as perceived. Ghana has taken up this leadership role in TB control starting from the planning, management and implementation of TB control and prevention activities.

 

In Ghana, the commemoration of the World TB day took place at Wa in the Upper West Region on the 18th March since the 24th falls on Easter Monday. The National planning committee in conjuction with the Upper west Health Directorate and the National TB programme planned series of activities to mobilize the health workers, civil societies, NGOs, media and the government to take action as groups and individuals in the fight against TB. T-shirts, stickers, customized TB cloth, caps and other advocacy materials were distributed to all regions to join in the day celebration.

 

Ghana stands to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on TB for 2015 by 2011, should the positive indicators continue in the current direction and these are all as a result of good management on the part of the National TB Control Programme (NTP). Accepting the challenges Africa faces in behavioral change communication which could deteriorate the efforts so far, the NTP through its stakeholders Stop TB Ghana Partnership to be precise have fully engaged the traditional leader in the control of TB since they are part of stigma trigger. Today in Ghana the traditional leaders are playing leadership role in disease control and prevention because they have been sensitized to understand the advantages of having a TB free society.

Presently, the traditional leaders nominate volunteers within their community who are trained by the Stop TB Ghana Partnership and the Ghana Health Service personnel to serve as community treatment supporters to implement DOTS, detect more cases, do voluntary counseling and testing, refer suspected cases and also work as disease neighborhood watch. This role will help regulate defaulter cases which are the incubators of multi-drug resistance.

The civil society organizations are fully engaged in TB prevention and control in Ghana, in fact the NGOs are also playing similar roles training treatment supporters in various districts having received support from the NTP.

However, if all African countries maintain similar pace and committed leadership role like the one in Ghana, it is obvious that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on TB for 2015 would be achieved even with the threat and challenges of HIV pandemic.

Chief Austin Arinze Obiefuna
President – Afro Global Alliance
National Coordinator – Stop TB Ghana Partnership

Your mail was forwarded to me by our CCM Chairman to give an over view how world TB day was cerebrated. Well as the manager of the national TB control program of the Gambia, series of activities were organised both at central and regional level. Among the activities were the statement of the secretary of state for health on national radio and television. He spoke on the importance of the theme: I AM STOPPING TB. Incollaboration with WHO office, the national TB control programme was able to conduct series of pannel discussion on national and local radio stations on the importance of world TB day. The medical research council provided T- sharts for the cerebrations held at the regional health team at upper river region of the Gambia. The WR in The Gambia was among delegates that witness the occation, which drew lot of community members.

1. Keep in mind the occupational risks on getting infected in contagious diseases, more in particular in this case TB, especially for EMS workers, nurses working in quarantaine departments, people who have a relation with work in prisons and take care that you are included in a screening program;
2. Prevention stays better than cure, so also protect yourself if your health is at risk.

My name is Samer, and I am from Jordan, 26 years old. I live in a country where there are not many people living with HIV. Unfortunately, we do not have any NGOs for those living with HIV in Jordan, but this does not stop us a apeople living with HIV to move move on and make changes. We have a support group for those living with HIV that is organizing now a new association, which I am pioneering. I am now a representative of PLHIV in the CCM of Jordan.

My name is Alexander Abimanyu, I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. A country with ever increasing HIV/AIDS cases, 4.57 per 100,000 lives. Spread in 32 provinces and 186 cities/county. The AIDS spreads by IDU (injection drug user), 49.5%, heterosexual 42%, homosexual 4%.

We need to do something with regard to these alarming facts. I admit that I have not done anything huge for this issue. My act towards fighting AIDS are small, started from myself being AWARE to the fact that AIDS are closer to us than we ever know.

I started writing little thesis about AIDS 15 years ago when it starts spreading and spread my KNOWLEDGE to my close friends and neighbors. I am heavily supporting organizations that pledge themselves in fighting AIDS such as Indonesian National AIDS Commission, GlobalFund, Until There is a Cure, and also ‘product RED’ campaign.

By spreading my knowledge, I hope that my surroundings will change their BEHAVIOUR and themselves being the FIGHTER. I figure that this Awareness – Knowledge – Behaviour – Fighter line of thinking needs to be applied in your own society. Start now before it’s too late. Share your knowledge, be the FIGHTER. There are a lot of people out there that needs our help. Your contributions, no matter how small, WILL make a difference. Act now before it’s too late.

Andhra Pradesh is a state in India and is estimated to have .522 million (22% of India's PLHAs). On Dec1, 2006 I have launched a campaign called "Be Bold" in the state with an aim to (i) to translate awareness to action (ii) to reduce stigma and discrimination associated witht he disease (iii) to increase the access to health care and (iv) to mainstream the fight against against HIV/AIDS making it a people's movement.

The Be Bold (BB) campaign has simple messages like BB to get tested, BB to accept the results, BB to change life style accordigly etc and targetted messages like families BB to take care of infected members, Doctors BB to treat PLHAs, Teachers BB to admit CLHAs in school, Youth BB to acept PLHAs as friends, Youth BB to say no to negative peer pressure etc.

To drive the message, volutary testing was the medium. I am the Project Director of APSACS, spearheading the movement in the state. To improve acess, We started more Voluntary Testing and Counselling centers(VCTCs). The number of VCTCs was increased from 286 to 677.

We got our Chief Minister(head of the political executive) Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy, his 10 cabinet collegues, Speaker and 70 members of the Legislative assembly to come forward to test to know their HIV status. In the last 11 months of the campaign the no. of HIV tests in the state has gone up to 1.5 million, from 0.5 million in 12 months of the previous year. Many new HIV+ve cases were detected.( about 100,000).

Test drive has helped in identifying new cases, reduce stigma associated with HIV testing by "Normalising" it. The ART centers were increased from 3 to 24 and the patients on ART increased from 3075 to 24000 now! Screened 7000 kids and put 1431 of them on Padeatric ART.

We insisted on "HANDS on" clinical training to over 10,000 doctors/para medicals rather tahn the normal "Hand out" trainings. This has helped to reduce stigma among the health providers. We have now formed "Bold Doctors Clubs" with those doctors who are bold enough to treat PLHAs.

We organised on 7th Dec 2006, a get together of 3800 PLHAs in Hyderabad. This may be one of the Largest gathering of PLHAs in the world. The meeting increased the self esteem and confidence of the PLHAs and helped a lot in reducing stigma and discrimination. Emboldened by its success we are planning a get together of 8000 PLHAs on 7 Dec, 2007. We had also started 0/7 initiative to reduce- ideally to zero- the transmission from mother to baby by 2007 Dec.

Concentrated efforts have given excellent results, with about 70% identified Mothers and babies given nevirapine in the last 11 months! More details are available at http://www.apsacs.org  

Asok Kumar, Project Director, APSACS, India

my story is on what i, okonta emeka, and the youths in asaba, delta state have done in our youth development organization, called foto-sofia, since june 2006, i set up on the streets of asaba to make a difference, the work has been quite hard, but on the mission of saving lives, no sacrifice could be more, than watch who can not pay you say thank you after a service, the fact that i add to others wellbeing is a real joy, i know that soon hope and help to do more for my people will come my way, this chance to air my view, is one great help, thanks for the opprotunity, our blog site and small sub-domain site speak some more for us, kindly see us there at www.foto-sofia.8m.com www.foto-sofia.blogspot.com kindly visit and see our little contribution to our community.

since we started no donor has come our way, we know that after this some can come our way , because these 3 diseases are really doing their job well on my people, and people like us with computer knowledge can not fold our arms we must shout it out, the government and the private sectors in nigeria are not doing enough, too much talks no actions, as an online volunteer for the UN in nigeria, i can not stop talking no matter if my government want to hear it or not, i must keep talking until they look the way of the PLWHAs, am going to share 250 fliers on 1 dec 2007, and personally talk to 250-400 people on the street on that day, i will join other persons who want to walk the streets that day, i am now ready to teach PLWHAs in nigeria workshop on self reliance and career development, i hope to meet them on WAD 2007.

thanks for this chance more info will soon come your way keep the faith brothers and sisters

On the occasion of the World Day campaigns, we invite you to share your stories of how you've taken the lead or have witnessed people or organizations taking the lead in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

"Take The Lead" is a forum that celebrates the leadership witnessed at all levels of society in the fight against disease. It highlights the efforts of great people and the impact of inspiring initiatives, modest or ambitious, that have contributed to saving lives in your country, city, village or neighborhood. Please take a few minutes and tell us about your contribution or that of unsung heroes of the global fight.