<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Manan Ganguli</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:manan.ganguli@smallsimple.co.uk">manan.ganguli@smallsimple.co.uk</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><br></div><div><b><span style="font-weight:normal">I am writing on behalf the 'International Solidarity with Dr Binayak Sen</span></b>: a network of health workers worldwide'. Ravi (Narayan) is actively involved with this initiative and has suggested to contact you. </div>
<div><br></div><div>We are a group of doctors, nurses, medical students, researchers and health workers from around the world who share the global distress about the presecution of Dr Binayak Sen. </div><div><br></div><div>
On the occasion of the World TB Day we circulated a letter widely for endorsement purposes (see below) and have sent the letter on 4 April to WHO/Stop TB Secretariat and WHO-SEARO . The response has been very good indeed; in a short spate of time, we have 178 individual signatories from 21 countries and 14 organisations like Doctors for Human Rights-UK endorsing the letter.</div>
<div></div></div><br><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div></div></div><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>We are now circulating the letter to mainstream media and to medical/health journals, hence this mail. I would be grateful if you consider publishing the letter (or the content of it) in any other medium to help spread the message. </div>
<div><br></div><div>If you would like to have further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.</div><div><br></div><div>Dr Manan Ganguli</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">To</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Margaret Chan</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">Director
General, WHO</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Lucica Ditiu</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">Executive
Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">WHO</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">24 March 2011</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">Dear Dr Margaret
Chan and Dr Lucia Ditiu,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><span lang="EN-GB">Re. World TB Day and Dr Binayak Sen</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB">We are at the halfway point of the Global Plan to Stop TB and are
launching the World TB Day 2010-2011 and this year’s campaign focuses on
individuals around the world who have found new ways to stop TB and can serve
as an inspiration to others. With this focus in mind we call your attention to
the continuing imprisonment of Dr Binayak Sen, the first Indian recipient of
the 2008 Jonathan Mann award for Global Health and Human Rights. We hope that
you will take the time to consider Dr Sen’s lifelong good work and commitment in
the field of health, in particular his effort to control tuberculosis in
marginalised communities, and wish to draw your attention to his continued unfair
and vengeful incarceration by the state of Chattisgarh, India. He has also
fought actively for the state to examine and redress the social determinants of
poor health and huge burden of malnutrition that contributes to and co exists
with the significant burden of TB amongst the marginalised tribal communities. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:8.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">We are
a group of doctors, nurses, medical students, researchers and health workers
from around the world, who share the global distress about the persecution of
Dr Binayak Sen in India since 2007 and </span><span lang="EN-GB">call for his
immediate release so that he can carry out his work promoting access to basic
rights and equity in addressing health in general, and tuberculosis in
particular. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:8.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Binayak Sen is a paediatrician and public health specialist who </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%">has dedicated
himself to the welfare of the poorest and most disadvantaged members of
society, and since 1978, well before DOTS was introduced in India, has been
working in the field of tuberculosis. In 1978, leaving his academic career at
the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, Dr Sen joined a Quaker-supported rural tuberculosis
center in Central India. It was here Dr Sen practised innovative and needs-based
approaches to control tuberculosis by convincing the authorities to be flexible
in providing anti-tubercular drugs to communities who would otherwise
discontinue their treatment for specific and understandable reasons e.g.
difficulties to access health facilities during monsoon. We believe his
approach was similar to community DOTS that has been adopted at a much later
stage.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:8.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%">Subsequently, during
1982-87, Dr Binayak Sen established a DOTS centre at a hospital run by mine
workers in Chhattisgarh state which he helped set up and initiated tuberculosis
promotion involving the mining communities themselves in awareness activities.
Later, in 1994, founding a non-governmental organisation, Dr Sen focused on
poverty and malnutrition in the control of tuberculosis and spoke about it in
various forums, governmental and non-governmental.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In a recent writing (</span><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.asianmedia.org/events/ACJ%20CONVOCATION.asp"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;
color:#1F66AD;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">http://www.asianmedia.org/events/ACJ%20CONVOCATION.asp</span></a>)
he expressed his concern about the growing trend of drug resistant forms of the
disease in India and emphasised the need for systematic WHO studies to explore
the relationship between tuberculosis and BMI in the country.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:8.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Chan and Dr. Ditiu, it is in this context we would like to bring
to your attention that Dr Binayak Sen’s incarceration is a huge tragedy and
loss to the field of public health. At the local level we fear that the loss of
this champion and also the services he provided and have not been replaced will
contribute to an increased risk of further spreading of tuberculosis. Dr Sen has
and would have continued to contribute tremendously through public health
policy formulation and advocacy at the state level and the education and
training of health activists and through his own practice to the <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>effective control of tuberculosis in India.
But Dr Sen is now in prison on false charges, sentenced for life. India
urgently needs him to be free.<br style="mso-special-character:line-break">
<br style="mso-special-character:line-break">
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:8.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;line-height:150%"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB">We hope you will take up the cause of Dr Binayak Sen’s freedom with
immense seriousness on the World TB Day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">For more
information about this remarkable doctor and his incarceration, please visit,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.freebinayaksen.org/">www.freebinayaksen.org</a> or <a href="http://www.binayaksen.net/">www.binayaksen.net</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-GB">Yours sincerely</span></p>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div> </div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div><br>