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