About World Tuberculosis Day

World Tuberculosis (TB) Day is a yearly celebration held on March 24 in order to mark the day when Dr Robert Koch detected the cause of tuberculosis known as the TB bacillus back in 1882 at the University of Berlin’s Institute of Hygiene. This historic finding was a first step in terms of diagnosing and effort to cure tuberculosis because during that time, TB was rampant throughout Europe and the Americas where one out of every seven people had died because of the disease.

The International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) launched the World TB Day on 24 March 1982 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dr Koch’s discovery. In 1995 the World TB Day celebration meeting was held in Den Haag, Netherlands by the WHO and the Royal Netherlands Tuberculosis Foundation where it was agreed that World TB Day will be celebrated each year.

Later in 1996, the promotion of World TB Day was intensified once the Union received support from the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as other organizations. Then, came the Stop TB Partnership, which was initiated and established in 1998, also known as Stop TB Initiative, where the setting up of a network of organizations and countries fighting tuberculosis along with collaboration with WHO that supports all yearly activities and events organized during World Tuberculosis Day.

World Tuberculosis Day is not a public holiday, but was observed in order to create public awareness related to the global epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) as well as efforts to eliminate the infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs. According to statistic done by WHO in 2005, the largest number of new TB cases transpired in south-east Asia representing up to 34 percent of incident cases worldwide and in 2012, 8.6 million people fell ill to TB disease while 1.3 million died from the disease especially in the Third World countries.

The figures kept increasing in 2016 where 10.4 million people was sick due to TB disease and in 2015, 1.8 million deaths was reported caused by TB. Any person can be contracted to TB and most common factors are the disease spread easily among people living in poverty, communities and groups that are marginalized, and countries with vulnerable populations.

Things to do on World Tuberculosis Day

Show your support on World Tuberculosis Day to help save millions of preventable deaths annually especially through awareness and education about the disease. The public can always participate together with the health organizations, NGOs, government and non-government organizations including other health agencies by organizing the variety of campaign related activities, such as debates or Community discussion groups, award ceremonies, photo exhibitions, Charity events to raise funds for controlling of TB in countries that requires assistance as well as activities associated with prevention of the disease and treatment. You can even assist in promoting World Tuberculosis Day global campaign through its theme for the year which is “Unite to End TB. Leave No One Behind”.

World Tuberculosis Day Flowers

Send World Tuberculosis Day flowers that uses the red colour, which is the same colour as the World Tuberculosis Day logo. Celebrate together this special day with friends or family members or even TB patient by giving them lovely red floral arrangements to provide support and the same time making them feel happy.