Jagran Pehel shines on International Platform

The Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Government of Indonesia and World Diabetes Foundation hosted the first Global Summit on the Looming Co-Epidemic of Diabetes and Tuberculosis at Bali, Indonesia on 2nd& 3rd November 2015. Jagran Pehel was the NGO partner and Dainik Jagran was the media partner for the summit. A diverse group of political leaders, healthcare practitioners and affected communities have gathered in Bali to map a global strategy to head off the looming TB-diabetes co-epidemic.

The event proved to be an excellent opportunity of exposure of Jagran as well as Pehel to an international spectrum of healthcare practitioners and CSOs working together to address Tuberculosis and Diabetes Mellitus.  Mr. Anand Madhab, Chief Executive Officer shared two distinct presentations: 1) Importance of Media in developing a worldwide campaign on TB & Dibetes and 2) The TB-DM awareness project being implemented in India by Jagran Pehel.

While delivering his lecture in the summit Mr.Madhab insisted that- engage media from the very inception of a programme or project. Make partnership with media so that they can understand and support from their core. Develop a business model for media to take them on board. Media shapes society’s views and influencing the way people think and behave.

Media raises awareness, influences behavior and generates public opinion. All the social problems have to be addressed by the media and newspaper in particular, from a different perspective. Media initiates intellectual debates on prime concerns of the society. Media build peer pressure for policy enforcement and implementation. During his presentation on the project he shared the key results of the campaign that showed a total of 51,702 people were screened for TB and DM during the period. Among them 1448 (2.8%) persons had suffered from TB and 3023 (5.9%) had diabetes.

Among those with TB only 539 (37%) of patients had completed their TB treatment; while only 507 (16.7%) diabetic patients were on treatment. Among those who had TB and diabetes, 382 (8.4%) persons had suffered from both TB and diabetes.

The presentation was widely acknowledged and appreciated by all the participants. The data generated through the project gained vast recognition. This is for the first time in the history of any Tuberculosis and Diabetes Mellitus that such primary and real time data has been generated.

There has been a significant impact of this:

- Excerpts from the data have been included in the USAID – UNION call to action against Tuberculosis 2015

- The key points of the presentation have been included in the press releases of all the CSOs

- The findings of the presentation were quoted by many development and medical practitioners during their sessions.

- Jagran Pehel has been invited to the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, South Africa, the world’s largest gathering of TB experts, advocates and members of TB affected communities.

Jagran Pehel has been addressing Diabetes since 2009 with support from the World Diabetes Foundation, Denmark. The project addressing TB-DM is the fourth project in the chronology.

Jagran Pehel is one of the signatories of the Bali Declaration. After convening a two day Summit this week in Bali, the Indonesian Ministry of Health, together with the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Health and the World Diabetes Foundation, today signed the Bali Declaration, uniting more than 100 global health officials and experts behind a global campaign to fight the twin scourge of TB and diabetes.

The Bali declaration recommends: a) To undertake action in our various capacities to support efforts to address the looming TB-diabetes co-epidemic as a public health priority, and b) To accelerate the implementation of the Collaborative Framework for Care and Control of Tuberculosis and Diabetes, produced jointly by theWorld Health Organization and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, including by pursuing supportive policy actions and mobilizing resources.