WORLD TB DAY CELEBRATION IN former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia*
The celebration of World TB day in
fYROM was organized by World Health Organization Humanitarian Office in collaboration with
WHO Liaison Office. All activities were funded by the ECHO/ WHO TB Project
- Should be taken in consideration the fact that in the week
of 19 – 25th March in some areas of fYROM were taken place confrontations
between Macedonian police/army and the Albanian rebels. Therefore, some areas – like
Tetovo and surroundings were excluded from the activities. As well, the activitiy devoted
to the spread of leaf lets from a helicopter/airplane was canceled because of the security
reasons.
Thursday, 22nd March
- 2,000 TB posters
were sticked all around Skopje and the
areas near Skopje.
On Thursday and Friday on 25 school from all around fYROM
– Skopje, Gostivar, Ohrid, Bitola, Prilep, Kumanovo, Gevgelija – were
distributed 15,000 leaflets with general information about TB and the TB programme.
Friday, 23rd March
- A press conference
was organized at the Ministry of
Health, 10.30.
Even thought the political situation was unstable, a high
priority was given to the event, being welcomed the participation of European Commission
High Representative in the country – mr. Pinto Tesheira. The participants were: the
Undersecretary of Ministry of Health – Dr. Kiro Salvani, the WHO Humanitarian office
- head of office - dr. Ambrogio Manenti, the WHO liaison Officer- dr. Marija Kisman, the
National TB Programme Manager – dr. Liliana Simonovska, the head of National
reference Laboratory -= dr. Marija Joncevska, the Programme Manager from ECHO – Aldo
Biondi .
There were invited journalists from the macedonian
national Television and radio, from the private television channels "SITEL" and
"A1" as well as from the 5 biggest journals from fYROM. The press conference was
broadcasted on all TV news journals on 23rd March.
The journalists received a package of information special
created for this day.
Saturday, 24th March were organized:
- 150,000 special created leaflets were distributed
together with the Saturday edition of the 4 biggest Macedonian newspapers:
"Dnevnik", "Utrinski vesnik", Makedonija Venes", "Vest"
(each of the newspaper contained the leaflet as a"present" for readers.
Photos are available in the attachment.
Sample of materials were sent by mail to your office.
Special mention for the involvement in the
organisation of the Day: ECHO – Skopje office.
"Special moments":
- Because of the security reasons, UN and the security Cell
in Skopje was daily asked about the possibilities of organizing a press conference as well
as the airplane that had to drop the flyers. The approval for the press conference was
obtained just in the last moment. It was funny in a way that, discussing so hot topics as
security problems in Macedonia, one of the topics was all the time "What are we doing
with TB Day? We give them the helicopter or is too risky?"
Lessons learned:
- The brainstorm meeting organized with one month in advance,
involving all possible stakeholders was extremely useful.
- Involving from the beginning representatives of
oficialities ( the municipality, the parliament, the MoH) the implementation is faster
- The most important thing is to want to do it!
- Do not give up after the first "No!"
- Involve children from school and organization already
involved in health education and with a structure well defined.
Thank you for your time
Lucica Ditiu
WHO TB Medical Officer
Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo
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