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Unmasking TB
Media Watch
Cavallini James/Bsip/Science Photo Library
Unmasking TB
For more on TB UNMASKED see http://www.tbunmasked.org/
276
A new media campaign, TB UNMASKED, is using stories told by the doctors, nurses and other health professionals who treat tuberculosis, often at great risk to their own health, to raise the profile of this still devastating disease. Tuberculosis kills about 3500 people every day. Healthcare workers who come into contact with patients are at considerably greater risk of contracting tuberculosis than are the general population: in India, the risk is as much as five to ten times higher. In some regions 80% of cases of tuberculosis in health-care workers can be attributed to direct occupational exposure. The best way to protect these workers would undoubtedly be a vaccine that, unlike those in current use, is both universally available and universally effective. The development of such a vaccine is the mission of Aeras, a non-profit biotechnology company with locations in the USA, China, and South Africa. The TB UNMASKED campaign was launched by Aeras to support and empower people who put themselves at risk of tuberculosis infection through caring for patients. The name derives from the masks worn by many of these workers, which would become unnecessary if a truly effective vaccine were available. “Our goal is to give all these health-care workers’ stories a larger platform so that they see themselves as a part of the global TB community and become empowered to seek better protection for themselves and their colleagues”, says Aeras’ Matthew Feldman, the project manager of TB UNMASKED. The campaign began in September 2014, with the launch of the website, which provides links to useful educational resources, many provided through a federation of more than 130 national nurses’ organisations, the International Council of Nurses. However, its emphasis, and, indeed, the emphasis of the campaign as a whole, is on giving workers the opportunity to tell their stories, highlighting the importance of protection and prevention from direct experience. Anyone who works or who has worked with patients with tuberculosis is encouraged to submit a personal story through photographs, videos, or text.
Visitors to the TB UNMASKED website are introduced to Pat Bond, a nurse from South Africa who contracted multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in 2010. She describes how 2 years of aggressive drug treatment cured her, but she still suffers from the side effects and has not been able to return to nursing. “Stories like this…bring new human dimensions to the TB world, which can often be filled with facts and figures”, says Feldman. The next phase of the campaign was a set of five documentaries premiered at the 45th Union World Conference on Lung Health, held in Barcelona at the end of October. Each film tells a story of personal experience with tuberculosis in more depth and detail than the snapshots that contributors submit to the website. These stories include that of Susheela from Vellore, India, who contracted extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis while working as a staff nurse. Like most people who contract this form of tuberculosis, she died of the disease, and the film includes moving commentary from her family and colleagues. Cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis were reported in 92 countries in 2012. The final documentary includes a comment from Tom Frieden, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who begins, perhaps unexpectedly, by declaring that he contracted the latent form of the disease while working as a volunteer in a New York clinic in the 1990s. Many people who work in the tuberculosis world—researchers and advocates, and those on the front line—believe that the lack of political priority given to the disease is the primary challenge. Matt Oliver, a health advocacy officer at the international campaign group RESULTS and policy advisor to the UK’s all-party Parliamentary group on tuberculosis, believes that TB UNMASKED can help to change these priorities. “Health-care workers are right at the forefront of the fight against the disease, and efforts to encourage them to raise their voice on behalf of themselves and their patients should be welcomed”, he said.
Clare Sansom
www.thelancet.com/infection Vol 15 March 2015
Cavallini James/Bsip/Science Photo Library
Unmasking TB
For more on TB UNMASKED see http://www.tbunmasked.org/
276
A new media campaign, TB UNMASKED, is using stories told by the doctors, nurses and other health professionals who treat tuberculosis, often at great risk to their own health, to raise the profile of this still devastating disease. Tuberculosis kills about 3500 people every day. Healthcare workers who come into contact with patients are at considerably greater risk of contracting tuberculosis than are the general population: in India, the risk is as much as five to ten times higher. In some regions 80% of cases of tuberculosis in health-care workers can be attributed to direct occupational exposure. The best way to protect these workers would undoubtedly be a vaccine that, unlike those in current use, is both universally available and universally effective. The development of such a vaccine is the mission of Aeras, a non-profit biotechnology company with locations in the USA, China, and South Africa. The TB UNMASKED campaign was launched by Aeras to support and empower people who put themselves at risk of tuberculosis infection through caring for patients. The name derives from the masks worn by many of these workers, which would become unnecessary if a truly effective vaccine were available. “Our goal is to give all these health-care workers’ stories a larger platform so that they see themselves as a part of the global TB community and become empowered to seek better protection for themselves and their colleagues”, says Aeras’ Matthew Feldman, the project manager of TB UNMASKED. The campaign began in September 2014, with the launch of the website, which provides links to useful educational resources, many provided through a federation of more than 130 national nurses’ organisations, the International Council of Nurses. However, its emphasis, and, indeed, the emphasis of the campaign as a whole, is on giving workers the opportunity to tell their stories, highlighting the importance of protection and prevention from direct experience. Anyone who works or who has worked with patients with tuberculosis is encouraged to submit a personal story through photographs, videos, or text.
Visitors to the TB UNMASKED website are introduced to Pat Bond, a nurse from South Africa who contracted multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in 2010. She describes how 2 years of aggressive drug treatment cured her, but she still suffers from the side effects and has not been able to return to nursing. “Stories like this…bring new human dimensions to the TB world, which can often be filled with facts and figures”, says Feldman. The next phase of the campaign was a set of five documentaries premiered at the 45th Union World Conference on Lung Health, held in Barcelona at the end of October. Each film tells a story of personal experience with tuberculosis in more depth and detail than the snapshots that contributors submit to the website. These stories include that of Susheela from Vellore, India, who contracted extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis while working as a staff nurse. Like most people who contract this form of tuberculosis, she died of the disease, and the film includes moving commentary from her family and colleagues. Cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis were reported in 92 countries in 2012. The final documentary includes a comment from Tom Frieden, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who begins, perhaps unexpectedly, by declaring that he contracted the latent form of the disease while working as a volunteer in a New York clinic in the 1990s. Many people who work in the tuberculosis world—researchers and advocates, and those on the front line—believe that the lack of political priority given to the disease is the primary challenge. Matt Oliver, a health advocacy officer at the international campaign group RESULTS and policy advisor to the UK’s all-party Parliamentary group on tuberculosis, believes that TB UNMASKED can help to change these priorities. “Health-care workers are right at the forefront of the fight against the disease, and efforts to encourage them to raise their voice on behalf of themselves and their patients should be welcomed”, he said.
Clare Sansom
www.thelancet.com/infection Vol 15 March 2015