24 March 2003

World TB Day 2003 is only 40 days away!

In this World TB Day Alert, you will find suggestions on how to use TB patients’ stories in educational and advocacy material for World TB Day 2003 and year round.

This year’s World TB Day theme, People with TB, and slogan, DOTS cured me – it will cure you too, are designed to focus attention on former and current TB patients.

When you encourage former and current TB patients to share their stories, it sends many powerful messages to listeners and readers. These stories can:

• Encourage people with TB to seek medical help, diagnosis and treatment through DOTS;
• Show people that DOTS saves lives;
• Help to end the social stigma that many TB patients experience by showing that TB is curable, and also that anyone can get TB;
• Teach people about TB symptoms, treatment and prevention;
• Put a human face to TB disease;
• Convince decision-makers of the impact of TB, the power of DOTS and the need for increased funding for TB control.

These are exactly the messages that we want to share in order to increase case detection and cure rates. By collecting patients’ stories and using them in educational and advocacy material, you are sharing these messages in a way that is compelling for people to read or hear because they reflect real people’s experiences. And everyone loves to read a story.

With the permission of the patients, you can use patients’ stories in:

• Brochures and leaflets
• Case studies for reports
• Press kits for the media
• Press releases
• Web sites
• Speeches
• Presentations
• Briefing sessions for government representatives and other decision-makers
• Training material for DOTS treatment partners
• Educational material on patients’ experiences for healthcare staff.

Make the most of these powerful tools that you have at hand!

We encourage you also to send patients’ stories to the Stop TB Partnership Secretariat.
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• You can find the entire content of this web alert on the Stop TB website at: www.stoptb.org/events/world_tb_day/2003/default.asp
• You can find the Stop TB Image Library at: http://www.worldlungfoundation.org/library.html
• For more information on planning for World TB Day 2003, consult "Guidelines for Social Mobilization: Planning World TB Day", available online at: www.stoptb.org/events/world_tb_day/2000/assets/documents/tbguide.pdf or order a hard copy from the CDS Documents Centre by emailing: CDSDOC@who.int.
• For more information on World TB Day 2003, visit our website at: www.stoptb.org/events/world_tb_day/2003/default.asp or contact the Stop TB Partnership Secretariat at: stoptbinfo@who.int.