City Hall going red to honour World TB Day

Tim Kalinowski

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge City Hall will be lit up red tonight at sundown to mark World Tuberculosis Day.

Lethbridge will be taking part in a worldwide effort to raise awareness of the ongoing seriousness of TB, a potentially deadly infectious bacterial disease which globally continues to kill approximately 4,000 people per day.

Some who are fans of Western history may recall this is the disease which killed the famous gunslinger Doc Holliday. The disease was once considered a major pandemic in the early 20th century with significant resources set aside to provide special hospitals provided to quarantine people with disease while it ran its often fatal course, but the invention of antibiotics was eventually able to help curtail the disease in many areas of the world.

But, says World TB Day co-ordinating organization Results Canada spokesperson Lisa Zentner, this is far from a disease of the past.

“It is not in the past,” she confirms. “Like COVID it is an airborne disease, and I know it kills 4,000 people a day. I know there are instances of people with Tuberculosis in Canada, and contrary to what some people may think– that it is a disease that exists in poor living conditions, poor water or sanitation, and is typically thought of people living in low income countries– in fact I have interviewed  people who had TB, one was a teacher in Toronto, another one was working for a film studio in New York. And so the problem with TB in high income countries is that the first thinking is this can’t be TB.”

The severity of TB is particularly high in Canada’s north, with Indigenous people living there having 290 times greater instances than other Canadians. Early diagnosis and treatment with strong antibiotics is key to successful recovery.

COVID, which has some similar symptoms, has made getting a proper early diagnosis in Canada more complicated than ever, Zentner says.

“Now what makes it even more complicated, with COVID,” she explains, “is there is potentially a misdiagnosis period until the TB is properly diagnosed. That just allows the disease to advance unnecessarily.”

Results Canada, along with partner organization the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, hopes Lethbridge residents will think of those suffering from TB as the red lights illuminate city hall this evening.

“We want to let people know TB still exists, and it is not a disease of the poor,” she says. “And that it exists in Canada.

“We want the government of Canada to know this is a real disease that still kills thousands of people every day. Once we are not talking so much about COVID anymore, TB will still be there. We want the government to know Canadians care about addressing Tuberculosis. (The lighting) is a physical beacon to mark the day.”

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