XDR-TB cure coverage a mixed bag
Kim Johnson
31 May 2012
Last week JournAIDS featured a blog about a City Press article that put a human face on XDR-TB (Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis).
But a subsequent blink-and-you’ll-miss-it report on XDR-TB patient Andaleeb Ringquest-January’s long road to recovery in The New Age (TNA) is decidedly lacklustre in comparison.
What the report manages well is to effectively communicate the family’s struggle to help and support Andaleeb though the trials and tribulations of her illness. But the picture-less piece is relegated to page 8 of a sub-section of the paper; an indication of story’s failure to really grab the reader’s attention.
The importance of reports on the lives of XDR-TB patients cannot be overstated. Until recently, XDR-TB has been an alarmingly untreatable and faceless epidemic, with patients being cloistered in quarantine for long periods of time.
If given due attention, media coverage can not only help to humanise patients and allay fear and panic around the disease but can also highlight other issues.
A Sowetan article published in March of this year successfully showed how XDR-TB patients are stigmatised within their own communities, to the point of feeling sub-human.
Overall, however, upon review of the coverage of recent successes in curing XDR-TB, it is clear that this important breakthrough has not received sufficient media attention.
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