CNS

It is not enough to promise, we must act to #endAIDS

Shobha Shukla, CNS (Citizen News Service)

[Watch this video interview] [Listen or download the audio podcast] Mahatma Gandhi had once said, "If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning". Gandhi's thought resurfaced after listening to Dr Ishwar Gilada, President of AIDS Society of India (ASI). He could not have been more sincere in demanding action to the fullest to #endAIDS by 2030 as promised by our governments.

Holiday from drugs? A big NO for asthma control!

Shobha Shukla - CNS (Citizen News Service)

An estimated 300 million people are living with asthma worldwide with an additional 100 million new cases expected to be added by 2025. WHO estimates that 15 million disability adjusted life years (DALYs) are lost annually because of this chronic disease that kills an estimated 250,000 people annually. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hold the promise of reducing deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by one third by 2030 - a tall order indeed, as far as asthma is concerned.

[Listen or download this podcast] One of the most recognized Indian film-stars globally, 60 years old Anil Kapoor, was made the Grand Ambassador for Clean Air and Healthy Lungs at the 18th National Conference on Pulmonary Diseases (NAPCON 2016). Emeritus Director Professor (Dr) KC Mohanty, Chairman of NAPCON 2016 and Dr Ishwar Gilada, Co-Chairman of NAPCON 2016 and President of AIDS Society of India, appealed to Bollywood film-icon to bolster the cause of clean air and healthy lungs. Anil Kapoor is perhaps one of the most fit and healthy actors in the film industry and a champion advocate for health. [Listen or download this podcast]

[Podcast] #endAIDS is possible if we do all what-we-know works: Dr Ishwar Gilada, President, AIDS Society of India

[Listen or download the podcast] Dr Ishwar Gilada is among the first medical doctors who came forward to care for people living with HIV in India. Success breeds complacency and complacency may breed failure. Dr Gilada calls on NOT letting off our feet from gas pedal and instead keep striving hard to keep the promise to end AIDS by 2030 (Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs).This interview is part of CNS Inspire Series. [Listen or download the podcast]

[Focus] #endAIDS is possible: "Belief triggers the power to do..."

Governor of Nagaland exhorts doctors to be socially responsible

[Listen or download this podcast] CNS spoke with Governor of Nagaland, Shri PB Acharya, on lung diseases in India, and priority lung health issues in Nagaland state. He spoke with CNS (Citizen News Service) on the sidelines of the 18th National Conference on Pulmonary Diseases (NAPCON 2016) in Mumbai, India. [Listen or download this podcast]. He exhorted doctors to be socially responsible and be genuine partners to ensure health justice for all, especially for those in rural areas and marginalized communities. [Listen or download this podcast]

Alarming rates of pulmonary diseases warrant urgent action

Shobha Shukla, CNS (Citizen News Service)

Alarming rates of pulmonary diseases in India are warranting urgent action as well as well-coordinated and inter-sectoral comprehensive health responses across the country to ensure every citizen enjoys lung health.

Complacency breeds failure: Consolidate efforts to #endAIDS by 2030

Shobha Shukla, CNS (Citizen News Service)

[Watch this video interview] [Listen or download the audio podcast] Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure. When the number of people affected by a disease decreases, there is a tendency to disregard it as a public health problem.

[Podcast in Spanish] Why WHO FCTC Articles 5.3 and 19 are so centrally important to implementation of global tobacco treaty

FCTC Art.19 expert Daniel Dorado,
Corporate Accountability International

Daniel Dorado a senior technical expert on WHO FCTC Article 19 delivering his intervention at the seventh Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organization (7th COP to WHO FCTC) in India: 7th November 2016. Click here to listen or download this podcast in Spanish.

Incompatible? Public health vs tobacco, alcohol and fast food industries

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

[Read presentation of Prof Jeff Collin] Governments of over 180 countries that have ratified the global tobacco treaty had met recently earlier this month and adopted and advanced strong measures to stop tobacco industry interference in health policy and also to hold tobacco industry liable.The meeting formally called the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) concluded with commendable progress on WHO FCTC Articles 5.3 and 19 (liability). In this context, I find it pertinent to share some of the learnings from the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health that was held in Liverpool last month.

[Watch webinar recording] [Listen or download the audio podcast] In lead up to World AIDS Day 2016 let us recollect governments' promise to end AIDS and TB by 2030. But TB continues to be a lead killer for people living with HIV. What more needs to happen to meet SDGs by 2030?

Are TB programmes responsible for poverty alleviation?

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland

Coming back from the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health held in Liverpool in October 2016, it is time to reflect upon the myriad advancements and debates to better the quality of care for people with TB—shortening the treatment schedule for multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), addressing the otherwise forgotten groups like adolescents, celebrities opening up about having lived with TB, and plenty more on fresh approaches to end the epidemic.

TB anywhere is TB everywhere

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

TB is still largely considered a poor man’s disease and is generally associated with the socially disadvantaged people living in low and middle income countries. But the story of Liam Joel Taylor proves that, being an air borne infection, TB can strike anyone anywhere.

[Click here to listen or download this podcast] Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, Director in-charge of National AIDS Research Institute of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has worked on HIV since 1989, few years after first case got diagnosed in India. He has played a key role in shaping India's health policy on a range of aspects related to HIV care and management. [Click here to listen or download this podcast]

Innovation is no longer a want, it is a need: People centric approach for MDR-TB management

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland

It is essential that any healthcare program in its advancement does not forget the population for whom it is developed. At the recent 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health with the theme of ‘Confronting resistance: Fundamentals to innovations’, countries shared interesting food for thought and unique advanced approaches to people focused quality care for innovative management of MDR-TB.

Burden of the heart: Cardiovascular diseases

Catherine Mwauyakufa, CNS Correspondent, Zimbabwe

To say that more poor people succumb to non communicable diseases (NCDs) as compared to the rich is not an understatement. One would wonder, why this co-relation between poverty and NCDs— if these diseases are non communicable how do they end up killing more poor people? Poverty stricken communities have little or limited recourse to healthcare, and hence access to medical screening is constrained and at times not available to them.

What can we do to tackle lung health?

Francis Okoye, CNS Correspondent, Nigeria

A webinar organized for the media by Citizen News Service, just prior to the 47th Union World Lung Health Conference, took a special look at lung health. Experts, who spoke on the matter, included Prof Jose A Caminero, Head of MDR-TB unit of International Union Against TB and Lung Diseases (the Union); Diana Weil, Coordinator policy, strategy and innovations unit,WHO Global TB programme; and Grania Brigden, the 3P Project Lead at the Union.

Effective partnerships are necessary to increase tobacco control outcomes

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

[Click here to listen or download this podcast] So said Dr Tara Singh Bam, Regional Advisor for Tobacco Control at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) on the sidelines of the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK.

Dr Tara Singh Bam

Dr Tara Singh Bam, Regional Advisor for tobacco control at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) spoke with CNS Managing Editor Shobha Shukla on the sidelines of the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. Click here to listen or download this podcast. He reflects on past game-changing successes in tobacco control and calls for accelerating progress in implementing effective tobacco control in countries. He also advocates for broader partnerships among public health programmes across the board for improving outcomes. [Click here to listen or download this podcast]

Justice late is justice denied but still it is better late than never

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

Dr Enos Masini

In December 2015, at the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, the TB Alliance (Global Alliance for TB Drug Development) and its partners had announced the availability of first-ever child-friendly fixed dose combinations (FDC) for treatment of drug-sensitive pediatric TB.

Dr Jonathan Cranston, a veterinary surgeon since past 10 years with mixed animal practice across the United Kingdom shared his personal lived experience with tuberculosis: not human TB but bovine TB. [Listen or download this audio podcast here]. He was in conversation with CNS Managing Editor Shobha Shukla on the sidelines of 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. [Click here to download or listen to this podcast]

We all can work, but together we win: Unite to #EndTB

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

[Listen or download the podcast] Despite commitment from the governments to end tuberculosis (TB) by 2030 (one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs) the pace of TB decline casts serious doubts on eliminating TB in the next 14 years.

UK Veterinary surgeon's battle with bovine TB

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

Dr Jonathan Cranston, UK

[Listen or download this podcast] Have you ever heard of animals transmitting TB to humans? I am sure many of us have not. And yet in 2015 there were an estimated 149,000 such new human cases of zoonotic (bovine) TB globally and 13,400 deaths. Unlike conventional TB, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), zoonotic TB in humans is caused by the bacterial strain Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) which belongs to the M. tuberculosis complex. M. bovis causes bovine TB in cattle and zoonotic TB in people. At the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, I met a 35 year old veterinary doctor Jonathan Cranston from UK, who is a survivor of zoonotic TB.

With a week left for inter-governmental meeting of global tobacco treaty (formally called World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control or WHO FCTC), more than 120 civil society organisations from India and several other nations globally have endorsed a letter calling upon the governments (that are Parties to the WHO FCTC) to act against the tobacco industry interference in FCTC. We are reproducing this letter below:

Is it worthwhile to decentralize drug-resistant TB services?

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland

Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) are global challenges. Treatment of both requires prolonged and toxic therapies. Centralised inpatient treatment, delivered by specialist doctors and nurses in a specialised hospital, is still a common practice in many MDR-TB high-burden countries.

"I felt like a prisoner in the paediatric ward…"

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland

Eleanor Frame

…So said Eleanor Frame, an 18 year old teenager from UK, who survived TB. Eleanor shared her story at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool. She said that she had no idea about what TB was, and nether did her classmates, until she herself was diagnosed with it at the age of 14.

New initiative seeks to coalese cancer organizations on tobacco tax

Henry Neondo, CNS Correspondent, Kenya

A group of international cancer organizations today launched a new initiative to encourage governments to increase taxes on tobacco. Tobacco causes 20 percent of all cancer deaths and more than 4,000 people die from tobacco-related cancer each day.

Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the Global Tuberculosis Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) was in conversation with CNS Managing Editor Shobha Shukla at the sidelines of 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. This interview is part of CNS Inspire series. [To listen or download the podcast, click here]

Transforming hope into reality for patients of drug-resistant TB

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis. As per WHO’s Global TB Report 2016, 480,000 people fell ill with MDR-TB in 2015, with 3 countries - India, China, and Russia - carrying the major burden and together accounting for nearly half of all MDR-TB cases globally.

Health ministers commit to reverse the tide of lung diseases and NCDs

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

The first press meet at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health, being currently held in Liverpool, saw the Ministers of Health from Philippines, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe reflect on the successes and challenges of responding to the global epidemic of TB, tobacco related diseases and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

Great strides in MDR-TB treatment

Alice Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland

Final results of a potentially game-changing study on a nine-months treatment regimen for multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) were announced at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. This study carried out in nine Francophone countries has shown a treatment success rate of 82% with limited adverse side effects - a significant stride towards stopping TB.