Malawi’s award winning health journo speaks out

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH BY MALAWIAN JOURNALIST BRIAN LIGOMEKA, THE 2008 WINNER OF THE STOP TB PARTNERSHIP AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN REPORTING ON TUBERCULOSIS, PARIS, OCTOBER 16, 2008

 
Distinguished Guests, health experts, activists, fellow media practitioners, ladies and gentlemen:

 
First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lilly MDR-TB Partnership Team, the sponsor of the Stop TB Partnership Award for Excellence in Reporting on Tuberculosis for funding this initiative. This award is a great recognition, motivation and encouragement for those of us who report on lung health issues.

 
I think the big news tonight is not that a Malawian journalist has won an international award for his excellence in reporting TB, but that those of us who specialise in health reporting are renewing our commitment to continue reporting aggressively on TB issues till this lung disease is eliminated on the face of the earth.

 
I do not look at my feat in this prestigious competition as a personal achievement, but I believe this is a professional victory for all the journalists who report on TB issues. All health journalists cannot be winners at the same time and hence my victory is also theirs; as we all share the same vision of fighting lung diseases through what we know best – mass communication.

 
I would like to appeal to all my colleagues in the media profession to continue working hard as the war against lung diseases ought to be sustained because there is a new twist to this war which is the emergence of HIV and AIDS on the scene. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has drafted in TB as its leading opportunistic killer. In Africa and other developing countries, the twin epidemic of AIDS and TB has become a difficult problem to tackle because of poverty levels. AIDS fuels the progression of TB, so does poverty. A hungry person usually defaults TB medication hence risking developing MDR-TB. We are now talking of a vicious circle of AIDS, TB and poverty as each of these three fuels the progression of the other.

 
While health experts are using all sorts of medicines and vaccines to fight TB, let use our skills to sensitise the masses about all aspects of this preventable and curable disease.

 
Once again, I take this opportunity to thank Lilly MDR-TB Partnership Team for sponsoring this award which I accept with great pleasure. Thank you for listening and don’t stop fighting TB.