Four partners in the fight against tuberculosis share their views on the power of photography and its relevance to stopping the disease

Seeing to understand
By Christian Caujolle
Curator, IMAGES TO STOP TUBERCULOSIS

We know that images alone cannot change the world. But we believe-and history confirms and proves-that they can help us to know it, to better understand, question and analyze it. Images can mobilize and drive us to choose change based on what we have gained through them.
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Lending existence to nothing
By Gary Knight
Co-Founder, VII Photo Agency and Chair, IMAGES TO STOP TUBERCULOSIS Advisory Board

When I was walking around the Rajan Babu TB Hospitial in New Delhi a few years ago with Dr Banavalikar as my host, I wondered what it was about the social make-up of the male and female wards we were touring that was so very odd. The rooms were the same size, the same cows were peering through the windows, the beds were the same and all full. It very slowly dawned on me that in the male wards, I saw men being cared for by their families-bathed, fed and tenderly massaged by their wives. In the female ward I saw only women-alone. I asked the good Doctor why and he explained to me that many women are abandoned in hospital because they are deemed useless; their husbands prefer to find a new wife to fulfill the daily obligation of labour, childcare and the preparation of food rather than wait for the old wife to recover. As if staring death in the face weren't enough, such is the stigma of tuberculosis.
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Photographs of silence
By Enrico Bossan
Editor, COLORS Magazine

The health service entered my life in May 1996. The phone rang, one of the many calls we all get every day. An embarrassed voice. My father had had an accident.
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The power of images
By Marcos Espinal
Executive Secretary, Stop TB Partnership

I am first and foremost a physician. Which means that my task in life, above all, is to save lives and prevent suffering and death. Consciousness of this role is behind every action I take as Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership. Our business is getting tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis and treatment to anyone, anywhere who needs it; and spurring research to find better ways to do all those things.
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A jolt to the senses created through the camera lens
By Mario Raviglione
Director, Stop TB Department, World Health Organization

Lungs and x-rays, smiles and tears, the elderly and the young - all have been used by WHO recently to portray tuberculosis. Sometimes the aim is to shock, sometimes to encourage action and support, but in all cases the goal is to ensure that this disease must not be ignored.
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