CNS: 2024

Labour Day | Gender Equality Talks on invisible labour at home

Join us on the eve of World Labour Day, on Tuesday, 30th April 2024, in a special episode of Gender Equality Talks live on invisible labour at home (2pm India. Sri Lanka time, duration: 1 hour). This year's Labour Day 2024 is on the theme “Social justice and decent work for all,” and we at CNS are hosting a special session of Gender Equality Talks Live focussing on invisible labour at home: the unpaid care work. Join us on Zoom.

A migrant worker who was sick for over three months, actively sought medical help and advice, but his health kept deteriorating. Despite having constant cough, fever, and increasing weakness since months, neither he nor his treating doctor(s) thought of TB. And this did not happen in an area with low TB rates but in India’s national capital Delhi – a state with highest TB rates nationwide – and a country which is home to the largest TB burden in the world.

Listen to this podcast featuring Dr Bornali Datta, Director, Respiratory Medicine at Medanta, and Project Lead of Mission TB Free Haryana. She shares insights of the incredible and high-impact journey of Medanta vans since 2015 onwards of how they are reaching the unreached with WHO recommended and quality assured TB diagnostics and services in Haryana, Delhi, and other parts of India. She is in conversation with Shobha Shukla, CNS founder Managing Editor and Chairperson of Global Antimicrobial Resistance Media Alliance.

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Podtail, BluBrry, Himalaya, ListenNotes, American Podcasts, CastBox FM, Ivy FM, Player FM, iVoox, and other podcast streaming platforms.

[video] Medanta van on wheels are reaching the unreached with WHO recommended TB screening and diagnostic tools

[video] Persistence pays: Community health workers worked hard to make TB services accessible for a homeless person

[video] Hyderabad's urban slum resident and welding worker got back on TB treatment, completed it

[video] Fighting TB in shelter homes for homeless people

[video] Migrant worker won over TB, helps others access care

[video] Homeless person won over TB and alcohol, survived floods

The chasm between TB and HIV continues

“The two worst global health problems have combined forces well. But the institutions addressing them have miserably failed to put their act together,” wrote Dr Tim France, a noted global health thought leader, in an op-ed article titled “The chasm between TB and HIV” which was widely published in several newspapers of high TB burden countries in Asia Pacific and Africa in 2006.

This World Health Day Podcast features Dr Susmita Chatterjee, Programme Lead - Health Economics, Health Systems Science, The George Institute for Global Health, India. She is also a Conjoint Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales; DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Clinical and Public Health Intermediate Fellow; and Professor, Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal University. Read this article which is referenced in the podcast "Deconstructing the economic burden of tuberculosis in India."

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Podtail, BluBrry, Himalaya, ListenNotes, American Podcasts, CastBox FM, Ivy FM, Player FM, iVoox, and other podcast streaming platforms.

[video] "I defeated TB" says Manjit, TB survivor and champion

[video] Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → End TB | Science-based photo story

[podcast] TB science simplified

TB Science Simplified podcast: Prof Urvashi B Singh explains TB diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Prof Urvashi is in-charge of Tuberculosis Division, and Professor, Department of Microbiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMS Delhi) is speaking in End TB Dialogues. She is also the Co-Chair of Diagnostic Committee, National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP, Government of India, and member of Diagnostic Committee, India TB Research Consortium, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and ICMR Task Force on Genital Tuberculosis. Prof Singh is in conversation with CNS Founder, Managing Editor and Executive Director Shobha Shukla.

Listen to this exclusive podcast on the theme: "Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → End TB" produced by CNS head Shobha Shukla. This is an exclusive and powerful science- and evidence-backed narrative on why critical building blocks of #EndTB agenda are: #FindAllTB, #TreatAllTB and #PreventAllTB - grounded in people-centred and human-rights-based and gender transformative approaches.

[video] Annual End TB Dialogues Summit 2024 | Treatment is prevention: Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → End TB

[video] Braving storms and typhoons Dr Samantha takes Artificial intelligence-backed TB tests to the unreached

[video] Insights on getting on track to end TB by former WHO Director of Global TB Programme Dr Mario Raviglione

[video] Are we making right choice of technologies to find all TB in Bangladesh?

End TB Dialogues Summit | World TB Day

(click here to register) In lead up to 2024 World TB Day, be welcome to join us in our annual End TB Dialogues Summit on 19th March, 2pm IST. The theme is: “Treatment is prevention: Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → end TB."

(click here to register) Join us on 19th March, Tuesday, at 10:30am Bangladesh time in a special episode of End TB Dialogues Summit (in lead up to 2024 World TB Day) featuring a range of #EndTB experts from Bangladesh. The theme is: "Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → end TB".

It is not natural disasters (like hurricanes or storms) which block access to TB care services most times, but manmade barriers that fuel injustices, inequities, greed, and risk factors that put people at risk of TB disease and death.

This podcast features Professor (Dr) Rajendra Prasad, who was conferred upon the coveted Dr BC Roy National Award by the President of India; and has been the President of all important respiratory medicine professional associations such as National College of Chest Physicians, Indian Chest Society, or Indian College of Allergy, Asthma and Applied Immunology. Earlier he has been the Director of Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute in Delhi and UP Rural Institute of Medical Sciences in Safai; former Head of the Respiratory Medicine Department of prestigious King George's Medical University (KGMU); and leads National TB Task Force for TB Elimination. He is also part of the leadership of TB Association of India, and continues to play a seminal role in shaping India's response to end TB. He spoke with CNS on sidelines of 78th National Conference of Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases (NATCON) in Thrissur, Kerala, India.

May you be the woman you want to be in a man's world

[हिन्दी] "A judge's son is a lawyer, and this lawyer's father is an inspector. Then who is the judge?"

When this question was asked in a training workshop, many participants floundered on the answer. Deep-rooted gender biases and harmful gender stereotypes and narratives, often affect the gendered way we think. Perhaps that is why it is not so obvious to many that a woman can also be a judge as well as a mother!

We cannot leave the older people behind if we are to end TB

One in four persons globally who had developed active TB disease in 2022 was over 55 years of age as per the latest WHO Global TB Report 2023 - around 2.7 million people. But over a million of these older people were missed by TB services (or not notified to the national TB programmes if they ever received any kind of care or not).

This podcast features Dr Kuldeep Singh Sachdeva who is speaking in CNS INSPIRE series, which features those who have done commendable work in helping shape responses to improve public health and gender equity. Dr Sachdeva has earlier led India's TB and AIDS programmes, has been the former Southeast Asia Regional Director of International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), and currently leads Molbio Diagnostics as President - Chief Medical Officer. He is in conversation with CNS founder Executive Director and Managing Editor Shobha Shukla, who is a noted feminist and development justice leader.

[video] To end TB we must address TB risk factors, says Dr Sajeevan KM

[video] Compassion and use of best of tools to test, treat and prevent TB is vital

[video] Do not leave the children behind: Find all TB, treat all TB and stop the spread

Treatment is prevention: Stop the spread of infection by finding all and treating all TB

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

These golden words of Michelangelo perhaps sum up the fundamental gap in the fight to end TB worldwide.

In this podcast, Manitosh Ghildiyal, TB and HIV human rights activist, shares his personal lived experience with HIV as well as TB - and how he is advocating for people-centred responses to end TB and end AIDS. Why cannot all people-in-need get better tests and new shorter and more effective treatments for TB? he asks.

[video] Detecting all TB cases and treating them is critical to stop the spread of TB

5000 vertical HIV transmissions in India in 2021

States need tailored interventions to eliminate vertical transmission

Written by: Shobha Shukla, Bobby Ramakant

Edited by: Dr Trupti Gilada (CNS Medical Editor HIV & TB science)

published in aidsmap on 19 February 2024

published in aidsmap on 19 February 2024

149 experts call to find all TB to stop TB

One hundred and forty nine delegates of 78th National Conference of Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases ( NATCON) have endorsed a global call to find all TB to stop TB, which has 1 key ask: Stop missing TB cases, by taking 2 actions:

Replace smear microscopy 100% with WHO recommended molecular tests as soon as possible, along with a paradigm shift from a lab-centric to a fundamentally people-centric model to find TB, leaving no one behind
Find the missing millions! Screen everyone (and not just those with TB symptoms) in high burden settings with WHO recommended screening tools, and confirm those with presumptive TB using molecular tests.

[video] Global North vs Global South: End health inequity to end TB and deliver on health for all

[podcast] Ending inequity is imperative to end TB and deliver on #HealthForAll

This podcast features Sumit Mitra, a thought leader on reaching the unreached with best of evidence-based diagnostics and health services, and President of Molbio Diagnostics (makers of Truenat). He is speaking at the World Social Forum (WSF 2024) in Kathmandu, Nepal, in a session entitled "Ending inequity is imperative if we are to end TB and deliver on health for all." This WSF 2024 session is being held in Ministry of Health and Population, Nepal.

[video] Go to the communities and #findAllTB

It is time to hold governments to account for ending tobacco

Currently the intergovernmental talks on the legally binding global tobacco treaty are taking place in Panama. This meeting, formally called the tenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), has delegates from 183 countries representing more than 90% of the world’s population, to review progress in the implementation of the global tobacco treaty, and take the next steps to help achieve the right of all people to lead healthy lives.

Would you not be surprised to learn that an industry whose products kill over 8 million people every year (even when used as the manufacturer intended), and cause an array of health and environment disasters of epidemic proportion, has not been held to account fully? Yes we are referring to the Big Tobacco. Well, perhaps a very long wait could be over as governments of over 180 countries are meeting in Panama for advancing progress on global tobacco treaty - and it is likely that such a decision to make Big Tobacco Pay - may come forth, finally.

Why are shorter, safer and more effective treatments for drug-resistant TB not reaching everyone in need?

Is it not a paradox that a preventable, diagnosable, treatable, and curable bacterial infection disease is still 1.30 million people every year. Yes we are talking of TB. Today we have all the solutions to #EndTB - point-of-care molecular tests to diagnose drug sensitive and drug-resistant TB upfront within an hour or so, and begin patient-friendly shorter treatment regimens ("same day test and treat") to get rid of this dreaded disease. And yet in 2022, an estimated 10.6 million people developed TB globally, out of which 410,000 cases were of drug-resistant TB. Moreover only less than half of those with drug-resistant TB (43%) were able to access treatment.

⭐ Watch the interview on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram

Immortal words of Leonard Cohen, “there is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in,” best sum up the transformative journey from pain to strength of Binika Shrestha, a native of Hetauda in Nepal. Binika shared the travails of the long path she trod- from being diagnosed with TB, going through the TB treatment, fighting the side effects of medicines as well as the haunting and daunting stigma, to eventually getting cured, and then, a few years later becoming a district TB officer herself.

This podcast features Dr Rennis Davis Kizhakkepeedika, President of Association of Pulmonologists Thrissur; Professor and Head, Pulmonary Medicine Dept and Vice Principal, Amala Institute of Medical Sciences; and part of lead organising committee of 78th National Conference of TB and Chest Diseases (NATCON, 2-4 February 2024 in Thrissur). Dr Rennis was on the panel for #EndTB Dialogues. For more information on NATCON in Thrissur (2-4 February 2024) please visit: www.natcon2023thrissur.com

[video] When problem (TB) is in grassroots and communities, then why are programmes not centred there?

Are we prepared to combat online gender-based violence?

[watch the recording on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram (part 1, 2), or listen to podcast] Gender-based violence is among the most prevalent human rights violations globally. Urgency is palpable as governments worldwide have less than 7 years to end all forms of gender-based violence and deliver on the promise of gender equality for all by 2030. But instead of declining, gender-based violence has become even more sinister and complex because technology-based and technology-facilitated online gender-based violence is also on an alarming rise.

[podcast] Youth and gender-based violence: Challenges and solutions

Listen to this podcast featuring an engaging discussion on youth and gender-based violence: challenges and solutions. Panelists include Kirthi Jayakumar, who is part of the Gender Security Project and Head of Community Engagement at World Pulse (India); Hafsah Muheed, intersectional feminist and human rights advocate from Sri Lanka; Tanmaya Kshirsagar, Indian Classical Vocalist, Writer & Academic and an intersectional feminist; Rita Widiadana, former Editor, The Jakarta Post, Indonesia; Kalpana Acharya, Health TV Online, Nepal; Xari Jalil, senior journalist and Editor Voice Pakistan; Zevonia Vieira, Editor, Neon Metin Media, Timor-Leste; SM Shaikat, SERAC-Bangladesh; Tanya Khera, Samanta Foundation; Joshua Dilawar, Y-PEER Pakistan; Matcha Phorn-in, Sangwan Anakot Yaowachon Thailand; and Shobha Shukla, CNS (moderator).

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Podtail, BluBrry, Himalaya, ListenNotes, American Podcasts, CastBox FM, Ivy FM, Player FM, iVoox, and other podcast streaming platforms.

A faith-based experience

As I left the UN building in Lusaka, I heard the sound of beautiful African harmonies. Intrigued, I followed the sound to find out where it was coming from and was led to a large catholic church across the street.

An Irish folk dance - Zambian style

I recently had the privilege of being the guest of Father Michael Kelly, a wonderful Irish-Zambian Jesuit priest, who took me to visit the My Home orphanage for girls in Zambia.

Together, we drove about eight kilometres out of Lusaka to a peaceful rural location shaded by big trees, where the Indian Sisters run the small centre.