Stop Tuberculosis promote awareness among vulnerable populations!

The 2013-2013 national influenza season demonstrated that the homeless or houseless communities are hit hard by airborne infectious diseases. There has now been an alarming outbreak of tuberculosis in Los Angeles and there are ongoing concerns about transmission of respiratory syncytial virus, noravirus and perhaps also the alarming, SARS-like novel coronavirus. Multi Drug Resistant (MDR-TB) and Extremely Drug Resistant Tuberculosis are expanding rapidly, with caseloads in the hundreds of thousands especially in Russia, China, India and South Africa. But many show up in London, New York, anywhere that has an airport.

Community health education in WASH (water,sanitation and hygiene) prevents disease . It should not be suppressed or delayed by religious, corporate or government control elites who wish to subordinate the public interest to their narrow agendas, however salutary they may seem to be. People's lives are at stake and services provided to vulnerable population should not become vectors of disease which ultimately harm the constituencies they seek to serve.

. "Congregate shelters" for refugees, the homeless, people in treatment and frail elderly often do become the source of horrible outbreaks of pneumonia, influenza, tuberculosis, respiratory synctial virus and norovirus. Sometimes we see MRSA- Methicillin Resistant Staphlococcus Aureus and new ones that are even worse. 

Homeless/Houseless neighbors respond enthusiastically to WASH training (Water, Sanitation and Handwashing) to prevent disease transmission. The key is teaching folks to cough properly and provide the means for them to wash their hands at community meals and shelters.


 Act now and wake up the establishment which is trying to suppress warnings about infectious disease control options
Tuberculosis is a current problem in the Los Angeles homeless community. Flu is coming back in 2013-2014 and continues to pose an unpredictable danger to children, pregnant women, the sick, the homeless & the elderly. Your pledge will help and you  might even supplement your pledge of support by inviting some of your Facebook contacts.

Thank you in advance,

Geof Bard,

Coordinator, Cough Hygiene Initiative

Alliance to Teach Everywhere About Community

Photos are unsheltered people who received a free LED headlamp in participation in the  Cough Hygiene Intitiative rollout.

PS Via email today:nocosomial "hospital" diseases amongst presumptively healthy cohorts.

In Jacksonville, Florida, 99 cases of tuberculosis were not reported to the satisfaction of many observers, leading to 13 deaths. According to assessment published by the Center for Disease Control, a similar outbreak in New York State could have been averted with dissemination of better infection control practices. In Santa Barbara, California, the Unitarian warming centers suppressed dissemination of cough hygiene education as a national epidemic of influenza swept across the country. And as reported in the Los Angeles Times, the LA Rescue Mission lost track of 4,650 persons who may have been exposed to an active infectious tuberculosis case.