Popular TV celebrity veteran Kai Kang and singer-TV star Qiong-Mei Chen lent their star power on stage to raise awareness for Tuberculosis (TB) at a press conference held by the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) to launch the Art against Tuberculosis campaign on the World TB Day. The pair will lead a troupe of celebrated artists from the Chinese Confederation of Entertainment Unions in a traveling show to raise awareness of TB prevention and control.

The Art against Tuberculosis advocacy campaign will perform at various temples in Taiwan to spread awareness of the condition - at the Zuoying Tianfu Temple in Kaohsiung on April 14, the Xianse Temple in New Taipei City on April 27, and then the Tainan Grand Matsu Temple on May 4th.

According to Taiwan CDC, incidence rates of TB stabilized and began to decline after the implementation of Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS). In 2012, 12,300 new TB cases were reported, which means around 53 per 100,000 people contracted the disease that year, reflecting a decrease of about 27% since 2005. However, analyses of recent trends indicate that 50% of new TB cases were contracted by senior citizens over the age of 65, a population with not only a very high prevalence rate for TB, but also high mortality rates due to high incidences of chronic illness and cancer. In response, this year’s TB advocacy campaign targets senior citizens, many of them long-time fans of seasoned celebrities Kai Kang and Qiong-Mei Chen who are also the spokespeople for the awareness and treatment of TB.

Kai Kang and Qiong-Mei Chen have both experienced TB in childhood. For Kai Kang, he contracted an inexplicable cough during the sixth grade ,which he assumed was just a cold as many students in his class suffered the same benign condition. However, he coughed up blood one day to the horror of his parents who immediately took him to the hospital. X-rays revealed swelling and white spots on his lungs – signs of tuberculosis. Kai Kang was then isolated in a hospital for two months and completed the treatment.

For Qiong-Mei, she has been on tour since she was six years old, and at eight, she developed a persistent dry cough. As with Kai Kang, the young Qiong-Mei thought it was just a temporary cough, at most a cold. However, her mother noticed something strange about her condition and took her to see a doctor, where Qiong-Mei discovered she had TB. Under the care of her mother and an effective medical regimen, Qiong-Mei successfully completed the treatment.

Kang Kai is now 67 years old. He remembers how it was like in the 50s and 60s when TB was surrounded by misconceptions, regarded with fear, and considered a terminal illness. Kang Kai recalls how the physician carefully broke the news of his condition to him as a young boy by gently saying “There is a little problem with your lungs” to communicate the urgent fact that Kai Kang needed immediate hospitalization.

Qiong-Mei remembers she was unaware that she had TB and was still performing three shows a day despite her cough, which was so severe, other performers talked behind her back, saying she carried a deadly disease. Qiong-Mei remembers feeling hurt when the others would sternly demand that she wipe down her microphone before they took the stage.

Kai Kang and Qiong-Mei later fell in love, and got married. Together, they have one son. Their shared experience with TB - from enduring strange looks and a general lack of understanding of the condition from others – pushes the pair to encourage their family members and loved ones to take preventative measures and see a doctor immediately if they have a chronic cough or experience cold symptoms. TB is not a terminal illness, yet discrimination against those who live with the condition is too common; Qiong-Mei feels very strongly that the community should create a friendly environment to help TB patients see their treatments to the end.

Dr. Chen-Yuan Chiang, an expert on TB control and advanced, effective TB treatment on par with international standards, warns that because seniors have more chronic diseases, they must pay special attention to their symptoms and physicians must also be particularly discerning when diagnosing conditions to ensure timely treatment. As a member of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD), Dr. Chiang urges physicians to take special care when treating senior citizens already on a cocktail of medications for various other chronic conditions.

Starting 2005, Taiwan CDC has been promoting a DOTS campaign to encourage patients to follow through with their treatment by reminding them to take their medication “from the hand, to the mouth – swallow, then leave.” So far, the campaign has yielded significant results. Recently, Taiwan CDC invited international TB prevention experts from the United States, Britain, Japan, and Singapore among other countries to conduct an assessment of a national program to halve incidences of TB in 10 years. These experts praised Taiwan’s established TB control system, increasing cure rates against multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and offered expert advice out of their professional and international experience to alleviate the current resource crunch. Taiwan CDC will review the existing policies and incorporate the relevant research to model and implement the 10-year TB control program in 2016.

The Taiwan CDC Director-General Feng-Yee Chang pointed out that DOTS, multidrug resistant TB treatment, contact tracing and latent tuberculosis infection therapy (LTBI) are important and effective TB control measures. Yet the most effective tactic in the fight against TB is the combination of ground efforts advocating within the local community to dispel fears and misconceptions surrounding TB.