World TB Day Webinar
Date & Time: Monday, March 24, 2025, 12 p.m. EDT / 9 a.m. PDT
Location: Livestream(Link emailed upon registration)
The Trump administration recently slashed foreign aid, cutting off lifesaving access to medication and support for hundreds of thousands of people who are fighting tuberculosis (TB)—the world’s most deadly infectious disease. These harmful actions sparked outrage and disbelief among the global community of clinicians, advocates, researchers, and survivors who know firsthand the dire consequences, specifically to vulnerable populations around the world.
For World TB Day, Partners In Health has invited leading TB experts, authors, and thought leaders to shed light on what these cruel actions mean for patients and the centuries-long fight against TB, and to discuss the hope and power that remain through the coordinated actions of activists and allies.
FEATURING
Handaa Enkh-Amgalan
Author & Public Speaker
Handaa Enkh-Amgalan is an author, speaker, and TB advocate. In 2021, she published Stigmatized: A Mongolian Girl’s Journey from Stigma & Illness to Empowerment to raise awareness about TB’s human impact. In 2023, she delivered the opening speech at the UN General Assembly’s TB meeting, influencing global policy. She serves on the WHO Civil Society Task Force on TB and works in the humanitarian sector, specializing in refugee empowerment.
John Green
PIH Trustee & Author
John Green is an award-winning, #1 bestselling author, vertical video sensation, and has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers, the educational channel Crash Course and an annual livestreamed fundraiser called the Project for Awesome (P4A), alongside his brother Hank. John serves as a Trustee for PIH and, with PIH and Nerdfighteria, has raised over $30 million dollars to tackle maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. In 2023, John publicly called for the eradication of tuberculosis and has since published Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection.
Vidya Krishnan
Author & Investigative Journalist
Vidya Krishnan, author of The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History, is an investigative journalist based in India, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2021. She writes for Caravan magazine, The New York Times, and The Atlantic.
Dr. Melino Ndayizigiye
Executive Director of PIH Lesotho
Dr. Melino Ndayizigiye, MD, MMSc, is the executive director of PIH Lesotho. He advises the WHO Foundation and supports PIH and Lesotho’s Health Ministry through the National Oxygen Task Force, TB, HIV, and health system strengthening. He also contributes to the Global Oxygen Alliance. Dr. Melino earned his medical degree from the University of Burundi and an MMSc from Harvard.
Dr. Madukhar Pai
PIH Trustee & Inaugural Chair, Department of Global & Public Health, McGill School of Population & Global Health
Professor Madhukar Pai, MD, PhD, FCAHS, FRSC, is the Inaugural Chair, Department of Global and Public Health at the McGill School of Population and Global Health. He was previously Director of the McGill International TB Centre. He is Editor-In-Chief of PLOS Global Public Health.
Maria Smilios
Author, Adjunct Lecturer at Columbia University School of Public Health
Maria Smilios, award-winning author of The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis, which inspired Staten Island Museum’s Taking Care exhibit, won the 2024 Christopher Award for affirming the human spirit’s highest values. The book was a Gotham Book Prize and NASW Science in Society Journalism finalist, and an NPR Science Friday Summer Read. She was honored by NYC and State for “outstanding service” and “positive contribution” to the people of New York, and she teaches at Columbia’s School of Public Health.