Southern Africa joins the rest of the world in commemorating World TB Day on March 24 under the campaign theme for this year; “On the move against tuberculosis: Innovate to accelerate action.”

This is a day designed to build public awareness around tuberculosis, a curable disease which continues to be the leading killer each year. The linkages between TB and HIV and AIDS have made the situation even worse. Globally 9, 4 million new cases of TB were recorded in 2008 with 1, 4 million of them being in People Living with HIV. (http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/index.html)

The campaign theme for this year speaks to the need for new thinking and a new way forward in the fight against TB. According to the Stop TB Partnership the campaign focuses on individuals around the world who have found new ways to stop TB and can serve as an inspiration to others. Here we are talking about individuals in resource limited settings who have found ways to respond to TB despite the challenges.

For the media in southern Africa, the focus should be on what governments are doing to respond to the challenge of TB and HIV co-infection across the region and the available treatment options for TB and how user-friendly the treatment options are. It should also be to highlight the responsibility that everyone has to stop TB by getting tested early and accessing treatment early.

It should also be an opportunity to tell the stories of men and women who have managed to beat TB by taking their treatment until the end. These stories will serve as an inspiration to many TB patients who have been tempted to stop their treatment due to side effects.
Key issues:

• World TB Day comes at a time when it is clear that targets for stopping TB will not be met unless research to find new drugs and diagnostic techniques is stepped up. Equally, more effort needs to be place on finding a vaccine. The media can use this opportunity to ask authorities about their priorities in terms of pharmaceutical and clinical research related to TB.
• At a time when much of the news on the HIV/TB front is going from bad to worse it is not hard to make the case that we are losing the fight against HIV-related TB. For instance, there’s more HIV-related TB today than ever before with an estimated 700,000 new cases of HIV/TB each year— and 85% of the cases are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most cases are unlikely to be diagnosed and placed on life-saving treatment. . Critical to saving lives is the urgent implementation of the three Is (Intensified case finding, Isoniazid prevention therapy and Infection control)-measures which reduce the burden of TB in people living with HIV. The media needs to turn up the heat and ensure these issues receive the attention of the relevant authorities (http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1284892.aspx)
• Multi Drug Resistant TB (MDR) is a form of TB that is difficult and expensive to treat and fails to respond to standard first line drugs while Extremely Drug Resistant TB (XDR) occurs when resistance to second line treatment occurs. Cases of MDR TB have been identified in South Africa and Zimbabwe recently. The media needs to ensure they dig deeper into these cases and find out what governments and civil society are doing to respond to them.  
• TB can be prevented and treated. There are simple steps that people can take to prevent TB infection but this is not happening in most households. While treatment in most countries is available at no cost, people are only getting treated when it is quite late. The media needs to look into the reasons for this and bring those issues out.
• The year 2010 marks the halfway point for the Global Plan to Stop TB (http://www.stoptb.org/globalplan/), a comprehensive assessment of the action and resources needed to implement the Stop TB strategy and make an impact on the global TB burden. It is also halfway to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6, Target 8 : Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of TB by 2015. The media needs to check into the progress made at country and regional level towards meeting some of these targets.
• The media for a long time have considered the TB story as a “technical” issue and one that does not sell. The onus is on the media this year to bring out the human interest issues around TB. There are men and women who have beaten TB and some who are on treatment who can share their stories of survival with others. The media needs to ensure those stories are highlighted.
•  It will be especially important to see how Africa will commemorate World TB Day this year. World TB Day is not as well known as World AIDS Day and very few people understand its significance.  The media has the responsibility to publicise World TB Day and ensure that the public and policy makers get an appreciation of the day and what it stands for

For more information, please visit the following websites
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/
www.safaids.net
www.mediaresourcedesk.org
ww http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1284892.aspxw.stoptb.org
http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1284892.aspx