FE receives Brac Media Award on TB

'Brac Media Awards-2014' were handed over Monday to three national media houses and 24 reporters of various national and local media in recognition of their outstanding contribution to raising awareness about tuberculosis (TB) and its treatment.
Brac organised the Media Awards on Tuberculosis 2014 distribution ceremony at Brac Centre in the city in observance of the International Tuberculosis Day which falls on March 24.
The three media houses which won the awards are -- The Financial Express (FE), Bengali Daily Samakal and Channel i.
FE Deputy Editor Shamsul Huq Zahid, Samakal Joint Editor Rashid-un-Nabi Babu and Channel i head of news Shykh Siraj received the awards on behalf of their respective media houses.
Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Dr Deen Muhammad Nurul Haque was present as the chief guest. Brac's vice chairperson Dr A Mushtaque R Chowdhury chaired the event. Mr Afsan Chowdhury, director advocacy and human rights, Brac, conducted the programme.
While expressing his feelings after receiving the award Shamsul Huq Zahid said the award will work as motivation for a specialised daily like the Financial Express to devote more of its space to social and health issues.
He urged the other media houses to give a reasonable coverage of TB-related issues, specially focusing on the Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) nature of the disease which has been a growing concern.
Shykh Siraj said people of cities are quite aware of various issues including those involving health compared to the rural people. He observed that the issues of the marginal and rural people do not get attention proper media attention.
Rashid-un-Nabi said district level newspapers can play a vital role in TB prevention alongside the national media.
Prof Deen Muhammad said media plays a critical role alongside the government and non-government efforts in the development of the health sector of the country.
He urged the media authorities to provide basic training to both the national and local level reporters who report on health-related issues. He assured that fund will not be a problem as there are many organisations which want to do this type of work.
Jury Board coordinator of the Brac media award Farid Hossain said there are differences between the media reports of 2008 and 2013 in terms of number and quality. Media now give more coverage on TB issues and do many investigative and feature stories on TB besides the day-to-day events.
Line director of the National TB Control Programme, Dr Mohammad Ashaque Husain said despite a strong and easily available TB treatment network like the Directly Observed Therapy Shortcourse (DOTS) in the country, still 30 per cent TB cases are unidentified as they do not report the disease due to lack of awareness.
Dr Mushtaque R Chowdhury said stigma and long treatment time are the main challenges in TB control programme. Bangladesh has set an example in TB treatment through collaboration in DOTS programme.
Dr Kaosar Afsana said media now have been covering the extra pulmonary and childhood TB which were neglected earlier. She expressed her concern that Bangladesh was ranked 6th among the 22 countries having high incidence of TB.