On World TB Day March 24, there will be a Congressional Briefing on multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) where David Rochkind, the award winning photographer and Pulitzer Center grantee, will present his reporting and photography on his exploration into the MDR-TB crisis in Moldova. There will also be a panel discussion on the burden of TB in the US and around the globe, the role of the US in implementing the Global Plan to Stop TB and the successes and challenges in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB.
Mr. Rochkind began working with capturing the human faces behind this global epidemic in South Africa with the country’s gold miners. In early 2010, he traveled to Inida to observe the disease in the context of urban settings and then made his way to Moldova where the country has been hit hard by a deteriorating health system and 30% of all cases of TB are multi-drug resistant.
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is a non-profit journalism institute based out of Washington, DC, working to highlight systematic crises around the world through high-quality journalism, photography and multimedia and provided support to Mr. Rochkind for this project “Moldova: Fighting a Deadly Disease”.
Based on the work his work, David Rochkind, along with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Lilly MDR-TB Partnership, created a free online education program called “EPIDEMIC: TB in the Global Community” targeting anyone who wants to learn more about TB, the challenges to communities, and possible solutions being developed. The website also offers downloadable lesson plans for high schools to integrate into their curriculum and tools to show students how to become active against TB outside of the classroom.