Via Antara, a story with a valid point: Indonesia worried TB fight might be overshadowed. Excerpt:
Indonesia's battle against tuberculosis, which kills one person every four minutes in the country, should not be overshadowed by other high-profile diseases such as bird flu, the health minister said on Wednesday.
Indonesia has the most deaths from bird flu with 57 fatalities since 2005 and has become one of the frontlines of the battle to prevent a possible human pandemic in which millions could die.
Much funding and attention, including from international donors, have been directed at efforts to tackle the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Indonesia. In contrast, about 140,000 Indonesians die every year from tuberculosis (TB).
"We do not prioritise a fight against one disease and set aside others," Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari was quoted by Reuters as saying a news conference after opening a regional meeting on tuberculosis.
"At the moment, the bird flu fight is taking a lot of attention but we have other sections within the ministry that also deal with TB or other diseases," she said.
"The world is focusing on Indonesia for many competing health issues, with the danger that tuberculosis may be forgotten."
This is a useful reminder: H5N1 is potentially a catastrophe. Pre-existing diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS are already horrendous, and have created a vast population that would be very unlikely to survive a flu pandemic. We should be working steadily to combat those diseases as well—and we should take note that December 1, Friday, is World AIDS Day.
So anything that improves public health around the world is a good thing and an additional bulwark against all diseases, including avian flu.
In this connection, I have a suggestion for your Christmas gift list: A Gift of Hope from Foster Parents Plan. (Note: This is the Canadian website of an international organization. You can probably Google Foster Parents Plan to find a site in your own country. The site doesn't welcome Safari users, but other browsers should work fine.)
Your sister or son-in-law gets a card; in their name, someone in need overseas gets clean water or schoolbooks or a goat. It makes a lot more sense to me than just buying more ... stuff.
And it could be the best possible kind of flu prep.
