The Hindu : A song for a cause

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 19, 2004

National

National

A song for a cause

By P. Sunderarajan

A.R. Rahman

NEW DELHI, FEB. 18. A.R. Rahman is set to join the list of celebrities promoting social causes. The `Stop TB Partnership,' a forum of agencies working for control of tuberculosis, has roped in the music composer to be its Global Ambassador. A formal announcement is scheduled in London on March 10.

Speaking to The Hindu , a senior official of the forum said: "We, at the Stop TB Partnership, are quite excited that Mr. Rahman has agreed to help advocate the cause of TB, which at present has a very low profile even though it is a major killer disease. It is estimated that globally about eight millions develop active TB every year and one person in some part of the world or the other dies every 15 seconds."

Satyajit Sarkar, campaign officer, said they had decided upon Mr. Rahman considering that TB was prevalent mainly in the developing countries. Besides hailing from this part of the world, he was also an international celebrity.

Mr. Rahman will compose a song on the disease and its relationship with poverty. "We hope that he would be able to produce the composition by March 24, World TB Day. We are keeping our fingers crossed as he is in the midst of a busy schedule," Mr. Sarkar said.

The appointment of Mr. Rahman as the Global Ambassador is timely as the next two years are very critical for the TB control programme.

The World Health Assembly, the governing body of WHO, has set a target of 70 per cent case detection and 85 per cent cure rate for TB by 2005. But, globally, the current level of achievement is only about 37 per cent in case detection and 83 per cent with respect to cure.

Meeting the 2005 targets will be essential, considering that one of the targets of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goal was to halt and reverse the incidence of TB by 2015.

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