ITK: governments need to fight harder against TB

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami wants all levels of government to join in the fight against tuberculosis in Inuit communities, said an ITK statement released March 24, World Tuberculosis Day.

TB is an infectious disease that usually affects the lungs, although all other organs may be involved.

And Inuit marked World Tuberculosis Day with levels of TB that are many times higher than the national average in Canada, ITK said, noting that in some communities the rates of TB infection are 170 times higher than in the rest of Canada.

“In the event of a federal election, we will be asking the political parties specific questions on issues relevant to Inuit and the Arctic. This is one example of how life for Inuit in the 53 Arctic communities is drastically different than for our fellow Canadians in other parts of Canada. We would like to feel that we too live in a G-8 nation,” ITK president Mary Simon said.

“Despite the announcement from Health Canada in January for the Taima TB program in Nunavut, it is simply not acceptable that Inuit across the Arctic continue to suffer with this disease in 2011.”

But Simon said that Inuit are not “standing idly by on this issue.”

This month the Inuit Public Health Task Group, with representatives from each of the land claims organizations, the chief medical health officers from each Inuit region, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, the Office of Inuit Health within Health Canada, and three Aboriginal TB experts, met to discuss TB and develop an Inuit-specific TB action plan, ITK said.

That plan will address the medical aspects of TB and some of the factors which can discourage the development of TB, such as food security, housing and mental wellness.

“Tuberculosis is a preventable disease,” Simon said. “It’s one with a very unfortunate history in our communities as we can recall stories of relatives being taken away to TB sanatoriums in some cases never to return. How can we, as Canadians in good conscience, allow this to continue? With all due respect I must state this strongly so it will be understood: if these TB rates existed in a southern Canadian community governments would not tolerate this.”