Sunday, 8 March is International Women's Day
Paula I Fujiwara MD, MPH, Scientific Director, and Riitta Dlodlo, MD, DMCH, MPH, Director, Department of Tuberculosis and HIV, of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, issued the following joint statement in commemoration of International Women’s Day, 8 March 2015.
More than three million women become afflicted with tuberculosis and more than half a million women die from it each year. While men make up the majority of people affected by TB, women and girls with TB suffer unique and often oppressive challenges. Women diagnosed with TB are often abandoned by their families, ostracised by their communities, fired from their jobs, deemed unworthy of marriage and motherhood. In some countries where TB is common, traditional gender dynamics prevent women from going to the clinic on their own to seek treatment and care, leaving the disease to advance into critical stages.
The stories of women with TB rarely make headlines, but sometimes they do—like this past January, when 40-year-old Kausalya Deshmukh of Mumbai, India, jumped to her death. According to news reports, she had been receiving ineffective treatment for multidrug-resistant TB for two years. She was depressed, and the adverse effects of the medicines made her permanently deaf. She left a husband and two children.
On this International Women’s Day, we call for a permanent end to the stigma and abuse that women with TB routinely endure on top of the pain and suffering they experience from the disease itself. We call for access to quality TB treatment for all women. We must all recognise TB as an important women’s health issue that demands urgent attention and work together for its elimination.
Photo: Jim Mullins