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HDI organizes Media Awareness Meet on
World TB Day 2002
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A ‘ Media Awareness Meet’ hosted by
Health and Development Initiative-India was the highlight of
WTBD activities in Punjab this year. Forty journalists from four
English, Eight Hindi and three Punjabi newspapers and two
electronic news channels attended the meet. The participants
were provided with an overview of the TB epidemic in India. The
essential five elements of WHO recommended DOTS strategy were
debated at length. |
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The success of TB control programme in
districts implementing DOTS and concerns about low TB cure rates
in non-DOTS districts also came up for discussion.
The significance of WTBD 2002 theme ‘Stop
TB-Fight Poverty’ for a country where 240 million people live
below poverty line and 14 million TB patients require active
treatment was keenly deliberated upon.
In the final session journalists and NGO
activists jointly identified a list of activities, which media
could take up to support the TB control programme. These
include:
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Raise public awareness about TB: how it
spreads, how it can be diagnosed and treated.
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Caution the public against deadly duo of
TB and HIV
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Inform the public about benefits of DOTS.
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Support the efforts of NGOs seeking
faster expansion of DOTS in country.
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Utilize meetings with political leaders
and senior government officers to ask them about their
involvement with TB control programmes in their
constituencies, state or country.
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Apprise the policy planners about an
increasing public demand for access to DOTS throughout the
country.
The ‘ Media Awareness Meet’ received wide
publicity and almost all the newspapers of the region carried
large stories about scope of TB epidemic in the country, WTBD
theme and DOTS for two days in succession
The handout of the
media meet can be obtained by mailing to dinesh@healthinitiative.org
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