Why Global Citizens Should Care
Tuberculosis is a deadly bacterial disease that typically affects the lungs and is thought to infect almost a quarter of the world’s population — although most are not actively sick. The disease disproportionately impacts people living in the world’s poorest nations due to poor nutrition and health care. Global Citizen campaigns on the United Nations’ Global Goals, including goal 3 for good health and well-being for all. Join the movement and take action on this issue and more here.

The world unites every year on March 24 to honour World TB Day, which aims to educate the public about the persisting, deadly impacts of tuberculosis on people around the world.

This year, in a campaign spearheaded locally by advocacy organisation RESULTS Australia, Australia will light iconic monuments red across the country to draw attention from policy-makers about the need to increase investment and end TB by 2030.  

In 2021, over 50 recognisable Australian locations will take part, the largest number of monuments of any country in any year. 

While the world has been engrossed in combating the health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19, TB has been pushed to the sidelines, with dire, unintended consequences for the world’s poorest and most marginalised communities.  

As one of the world’s top infectious killers, TB already claimed the lives of 1.4 million people a year before COVID-19, despite the disease being both preventable and curable. Now, just over a year since the pandemic began, experts fear progress against TB has been pushed back 12 years, with over a million fewer people receiving care in 2020 than in 2019. 

"The effects of COVID-19 go far beyond the death and disease caused by the virus itself,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation, said Monday in a statement. “The disruption to essential services for people with TB is just one tragic example of the ways the pandemic is disproportionately affecting some of the world’s poorest people, who were already at higher risk for TB.”

From the iconic old parliament house in Canberra to the Perth Concert Hall, here are all the locations set to light up.

New South Wales

  • Manly Town Hall

  • Rockdale Town Hall

  • Convention Wing, Albury

  • Newcastle City Hall Clock Tower

Victoria

  • Bendigo Conservatory

  • Water Tower, Wodonga

  • Catenary and Little Malop Central Light, Greater Geelong

  • Monash Park tree and Mooroopna Water Towers, Greater Shepparton

  • The Drum Theatre, Greater Dandenong 

Queensland

  • Maryborough City Hall, Fraser Coast

  • Tree and Festoon Lighting, Maranoa

  • Fig Trees, Bundaberg

  • Council Facilities, Moreton Bay

  • City Hall, King George Square Story Bridge, Victoria Bridge and Reddacliff Place Sculptures 

Australian Capital Territory 

  • Telstra Tower

  • Old Parliament House

  • The Royal Australian Mint

Western Australia 

  • Koombana Footbridge, Bunbury

  • Queens Park Theatre, Geraldton

  • Perth Concert Hall

  • Fremantle Prison

  • Council House and Trafalgar Bridge

  • Matagarup, Mount Street and Sky Ribbon Bridge

South Australia 

  • Adelaide Town Hall

  • Adelaide Convention Centre

  • Adelaide Oval

  • Riverbank Footbridge

  • Henley Square, Charles Sturt

  • Unley Town Hall

Northern Territory

  • Town Square, Katherine

  • Water Tower and the Frances Drive Light Pole, Palmerston

Tasmania

  • Council Tree, Latrobe 

  • Council Chambers, Waratah-Wynyard

  • CBD Precinct, Sheffield

  • Paranaple Convention Centre, Devonport  

News

Defeat Poverty

Australia Lights Up Red to Raise Awareness About the Deadly Impact of Tuberculosis

By Madeleine Keck