Citizen journalists speak their world
25 November 2008
The Loop will be featuring highlights of citizen journalism from HDN’s Key Correspondents team every month. This month Bobby Ramakant reports on activist demands in the run up to the 39th World Conference on Lung Health in Paris.
Key Correspondents are citizen journalists writing about the local realities of those living and dealing with HIV and TB. Key Correspondents can be found all over the world and have one major thing in common: they are committed to raising the voices of those who may not otherwise be able to ‘speak their world’ on health and development issues from the ground. They are facilitated and supported by the Alliance’s new merger partner Health & Development Networks (HDN), with the aim of professionalizing their reporting skills while writing about health issues that matter to individuals in the field.
Activists call for urgent responses to TB
By Key Correspondent Bobby Ramakant
Activists called for urgent global responses to tuberculosis (TB) in the lead up to the 39th World Conference on Lung Health in Paris.
Paula Akugizibwe of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) voiced concerns over the lack of genuine urgency in the response to the disease at a special session of the Stop TB Partnership’s drug-resistance mobilization sub-group on 14 October.
According to activists like Akugizibwe, the continuing failure of coordination and collaboration efforts between TB and HIV programmes in severely affected countries is appalling.
“Such coordination needs to start at the highest level and be implemented consistently at every level, including joint planning and budgeting, the integration of services and implementation of the ‘Three I's’ to reduce TB and HIV co-infection (Isoniazid Preventive Therapy, Intensified Case Finding and Infection Control),” ARASA activists said.
“The unbearable sluggishness of health authorities in adopting a rational and cohesive approach to the management of this co-epidemic through the adoption of these critical measures is costing thousands of lives.”
TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV or AIDS in Africa, where TB mortality rates are four times higher than regional targets.
Bobby Ramakant
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