Fight Against Tuberculosis

On the occasion of World TB Day 2005, the Global Health Initiative (GHI) is launching a worldwide campaign to encourage and assist more businesses to take an active role in the fight against tuberculosis (TB). The GHI, in partnership with the WHO and ILO, already offers guidelines on how to manage TB in the workplace. This year’s campaign focuses on expanding the uptake of these guidelines. It will also include education seminars for the media and a series of initiatives aimed at businesses, primarily in the high prevalence countries of China , India , Indonesia and South Africa. Apart from the devastating effect of the disease on social and family life, TB causes major problems in the workplace. TB is estimated to lead to a decline in worker productivity of US$ 12 billion annually. The disease imposes many costs on companies by striking individuals in their productive prime (80% of TB sufferers are between 15 and 55), resulting in disrupted workflow, reduced productivity, retraining and other costs. As part of their corporate social responsibility, many businesses have a broad commitment to improving the well-being of the community – a TB control programme is a practical way to demonstrate this.”It is only in recent years that practical guidelines on how businesses can address TB at the workplace have been developed,” says Francesca Boldrini, Associate Director of the GHI. “Now is the time to share these new policies and tools broadly and to work with businesses to implement them.”Although a cure is available for as little as US$ 10, many business leaders are still unaware of the disease’s impact on their workforce and how to stop it. A recent survey of business executives, conducted by the World Economic Forum, showed that overall only 8% of respondents worldwide perceive the disease as having a serious current or future impact on their company. Even in high prevalence countries, serious business concern of TB’s impact on companies was only 13%.