Education is Needed Now More Than Ever

The World Health Organization I tackles the issue of spreading tuberculosis in developing countries, starting with informing people on what it is, how it affects them, and ways to prevent it.

The first thing to know is that the latent tuberculosis infection symptoms can’t be seen, but the tuberculosis disease is noticeable and often deadly.

“People don’t always show symptoms, so it’s hard to detect the infection,” said the representative from Germany.

The Philippines and the United States proposed an education plan, incorporating the use of to social media to spread awareness. Germany also talks about social media in their plan with countries like Switzerland and Kazakhstan, who are calling it the AIM initiative.

“We’re focusing on improving infrastructure, education, and technology through innovation,” said Switzerland.

HIV is part of the what the committee is focusing on including when raising awareness because it weakens the immune system, allowing TB to easily do damage.

“We should use social media as a way to report HIV and stop discrimination against people with HIV in order to move away from certain stigmas,” said the delegate from the Philippines.

Another reason for increasing awareness and technological advances stems from the testing process for tuberculosis. Not only is it hard to detect sometimes and possibly fatal, but also the vaccination for TB that is supposed to prevent tragedy can cause more problems than it solves.

“The method for the vaccine is not always clean, so there is a need for better sanitation,” said Germany, referencing the lack of sanitary practices associated with injecting the vaccine, such as not cleaning needles properly.

When speaking about the main priority of the committee, the vast majority of delegates agreed education should be incorporated into almost all of the issues faced with tuberculosis. However, some representatives in WHO I have some slightly different ideas.

“The main issue we’re facing in committee is how we are going to fund our plans,” said the delegate from Venezuela.

“Education is important, but without funds, nothing can be done,” said Canada. “Funding is limited, so we need new ways to get money in order to back education.”

Overall, delegates feel everyone is being productive and has similar stances on the issues so working together is easy.

“I’m positive that we will come to a good resolution by the end,” said the delegate from Ethiopia.