Speaking at an international training workshop for journalists in Cape Town, South Africa on Thursday, Anthony Harries, head of the Paris-based health organisation International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) challenged the media to be responsible for highlighting the pandemic.

"TB is a major killer in Africa," Harries said. "A lot is still required to be done. Journalists must write on it and speak on it, for the African continent to change."

This call comes at a time when TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV, responsible for around 10–15 % of all HIV/AIDS related deaths all over the world. In Africa, HIV is the single most important factor contributing to the increased incidence of TB in the past decade.

It should serve as a wake-up call for journalists to provide information on how to prevent and manage TB and HIV through coverage of TB and HIV issues.

According to UNAIDS estimates for 2008, around 33 million people were living with HIV and AIDS. In 2007, there were an estimated 1.37 million new cases of tuberculosis among HIV-infected people and 456 000 deaths.

By increasing and improving coverage of TB and HIV in an accurate and non-stigmatising manner, journalists can hopefully add their voices to the growing calls for the integrated management of HIV and TB within our health care systems.

This way TB testing and treatment services can hopefully become more readily available and deaths from this preventable and treatable disease can be reduced.

As the 5th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention takes place in Cape Town, journalists in this region have been presented with yet another opportunity to make information on TB and HIV prevention and treatment more readily available to their audiences across the region. This is also an opportune time for them to familiarise themselves more with developments in the TB and HIV field so that their reporting can become more accurate and affective

It is commendable that a four-day workshop organised by National Press Foundation (NPF) under its Journalist-to-Journalist programme, aimed at training journalists on how to report on HIV and AIDS is taking place on the sidelines of the conference. There is need for more trainings of that nature.

Every journalist ought to put the spotlight on TB and HIV. 

Sources:

 http://www.ias2009.org/

www.mediaresourcedesk.org

http://www.healthdev.org/eforums/stop-tb