Anna Cataldi, Stop TB Ambassador

Anna Cataldi, who is from Italy, was appointed as a Stop TB Ambassador in September 2007. Her role is to raise awareness worldwide about the unfair burden of TB on refugees, migrants, people living in poverty and other disadvantaged groups and to speak out for access to TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment as a human right.

Ms Cataldi, who was appointed UN Messenger of Peace by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1998 and served in that role until 2007, has a long and accomplished record as a human rights advocate. The author of Letters from Sarajevo, which chronicles the impact of war on Bosnia's children, she has also traveled in Somalia, Rwanda and Afghanistan, bringing support and encouragement to those caught in dangerous conflicts in those countries. In 1998, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she initiated a project to create and distribute a passport-sized pamphlet version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for children. In March 2007, she conceived and helped organize a photo exhibit focussing on TB at UN Headquarters that was viewed by more than 100 000 people.

Ms Cataldi describes her awakening to the terrible toll of TB on people worldwide as an epiphany. "Eighteen months before I began serving as a Stop TB Ambassador, tuberculosis meant almost nothing to me. It was obsolete, a disease that belonged to the past. Then while traveling I witnessed first hand the fight so many are still having with this so-called obsolete disease, even people living in deprived urban areas of affluent industrialized countries. I learned, too, that their suffering is unnecessary because today TB is curable at a very modest cost. These discoveries have motivated me to do all I can to raise awareness about this terrible disease," she says.