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Posted on March 18, 2002 at 12:10 p.m. |
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WHAT: |
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World TB Day is March 24. To mark the event and in keeping with this year’s theme, “Stop TB, Fight Poverty,” Dr. Michael Kimerling, director of the Gorgas TB Initiative at UAB and TB consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), will talk about the disease and its devastating impact on our state, nation and world. “TB affects primarily poorer communities — here in Alabama and around the globe — costing billions of dollars each year in healthcare costs, downtime and lost wages,” says Kimerling. “Reducing TB is a wise investment in the physical and financial health of these communities and the world’s economy.” UAB’s Gorgas TB Initiative is a member of the WHO Stop TB Partnership, a global network of individuals and organizations working to stop the spread of TB worldwide. |
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WHEN: |
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Wednesday, March 20, 2002 |
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WHERE: |
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UAB Ryals Public Health Building |
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WHO: |
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Kimerling is an internationally recognized expert on TB whose work has spanned from rural Alabama to the refugee camps of the Thai-Cambodian border to prisons in Siberia. He is associate professor of medicine with the division of general internal medicine and associate professor of public health with the department of epidemiology and international health in UAB’s School of Public Health. He is also interim director of the UAB International Tuberculosis Center, state medical consultant to the Alabama Department of Public Health and a member of the Alabama TB Medical Advisory Council. |
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MORE: |
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The aims of this year’s “Stop TB, Fight Poverty” campaign are to expand the directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS), the recommended identification and treatment strategy for TB control; to increase awareness of TB and its impact on the global community; and to increase access to care. Almost two billion people — one third of the world's population — are infected with TB. This year an estimated eight million people, including 170,000 children, will become infected with TB, and approximately three million will die from the disease. In the United States, Southeastern states account for the majority of those reporting higher TB rates than the national average. |