The concert was arranged by USAID’s ‘Ujjiban’, a communication project to bring about Social and Behavioral change, marking the upcoming birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the upcoming World Tuberculosis Day on March 24.
As part of the year-long plans to fight to eliminate the disease during Mujib-Borsho, the concert was also joined by Save the Children and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as the organizers alongside the Ujjiban project, led by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (CCP).
Hosted by Bangladeshi stand-up comedian Abu Hena Rony of ‘Mirakkel’ fame, the concert was joined and performed by noted television artists and popular Bangla band ‘Joler Gaan’ as the headliners. The programme was attended by a large crowd in the middle of Hatirjheel at the Amphitheatre.
“As today we are here for a special purpose, we think we are united against Tuberculosis. We believe we do not want this disease to win over our lives so we sincerely wish and hope that not a single person present here would be a patient of Tuberculosis, and the whole Bangladesh will eventually be TB free,” said Joler Gaan’s vocalist Rahul Anand.
A free-health camp was also arranged for free HIV test and consultation, by Save the Children and International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) outside the venue.
In addition to that, there were free Tuberculosis test-vans provided by Brac for free Tuberculosis testing.
One of the ten highest-risked countries in the world for TB, Bangladesh treated more than 2.5 million TB cases in 2018. About 364,000 Bangladeshis develop active Tuberculosis disease and more than 70,000 die from it every year, according to the journals.