UN-backed initiative enlists celebrity help in fight against tuberculosis

A new initiative to combat tuberculosis (TB), an illness which claims the lives of over one million people each year, has recruited international celebrities in an effort to maintain awareness towards eradicating the disease, the United Nations health agency announced today.

The group of nine celebrities – from Georgia, Ghana, Jordan, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, Sudan, and South Africa – have teamed up with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Stop TB Partnership to underscore the urgent need for continued financial support for the global fight against the disease.

The overwhelming majority of people with TB can be cured by a six-month drug treatment costing as little as $25. Untreated, however, the disease can be lethal.

Earlier this year, WHO reported that for the first time the number of people falling ill with TB each year was declining, but warned that current progress is at risk due to under-funding.

The agency’s most recent data, published in the World Health Organization (WHO) 2011 Global Tuberculosis Control Report released in October, showed that the number of TB deaths fell to 1.4 million in 2010, after reaching 1.8 million in 2003.

However, the report also found that the current progress being made was at risk from under-funding, especially efforts to combat multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), a form of the disease that fails to respond to standard first-line drugs.

The nine celebrities are Jordanian actress Rania Ismail, Ghanaian pop singer Obour, Pakistani actor Behrooz Sabzwari, Sudanese television presenter Awad Ibrahim Awad, Georgian theatre director Zaal Chikobava, Nepalese actors Deepak Raj Giri and Deepa Shree Niraula, South African television personality Gerry Elsdon and Peruvian journalist Sonia Goldenberg.

Established in 2001 by WHO, the Stop TB Partnership seeks to realize the goal of eliminating TB as a public health problem and, ultimately, to obtain a world free of TB. It comprises a network of international organizations, countries, donors from the public and private sectors, as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).