Water tower lights up red to mark World Tuberculosis Day

The Water Tower in Wodonga will light up red Wednesday, March 24 to stand in solidarity with the 1.4 million people who die of TB each year.

It will be one of 50 iconic buildings across Australia showing their support to end the TB pandemic.

TB remains one of the world’s deadliest airborne infectious diseases, killing 4,000 people every day, among them 700 children, and close to 15 million people in the past decade.

Even in Australia one million people carry the latent bacteria and more than 1,000 people required treatment last year.

“As the world continues to deal with the COVID pandemic, we are shining a light on the fact TB will kill more than one million people this year and every year unless we ramp up action to wipe it out," Results advocate Nicholas Gould said.

“Some of our nearest neighbours have the highest TB rates in the world, including Papua New Guinea which is now struggling with runaway COVID infections and a straining hospital system at the same time.

“The COVID-19 crisis means it’s more important than ever that we assist our neighbouring countries in dealing with the impacts of TB, and don’t fall behind in eradicating this disease not just in Australia but across our region,” he said.

A full list of light up locations available here