Though the new coronavirus has seen a lot of activities suspended since March, Afro-beat singer Mico the Best has insisted that he will resume his awareness campaign for the fight against the TB as soon as the pandemic cools down. The singer, real name Prosper Turatsinze, made the pledge on Thursday, June 11, evening during a virtual conversation with Lucica Ditiu, the Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership, a UN hosted partnership and a collective force transforming the fight against Tuberculosis. Mico the Best is the TB Champion in Rwanda and has been working with the Ministry of Health, through Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), in different initiatives aimed at raising awareness against the TB in different parts of the country. In February, he launched the ‘Friend to Friend’ campaign, through which he targets to do music tours in different parts of the country, as an opportunity to meet more people to sensitise against TB. The singer was, however, forced to suspend his campaign a month later due to the spread of Coronavirus pandemic in Rwanda. During the virtual conversation, Mico expressed his hopes that he will resume his campaign as soon as the country comes back to normal from the Covid-19 crisis. “Though some few parts are still in lockdown, our government is doing whatever it takes to overcome this pandemic and, given the success of the current preventive measures so far, there is hope that I could resume my campaign soon when more activities are reopened,” Mico said. “There are some patients who take TB drugs and stop taking them before the disease is completely healed. There are others who might get infected and delay doing to see the doctors for early treatmen,” “My campaign intends to reach and educate all these categories of people as part of my contribution to my country’s drive to end TB in Rwanda,” he added. Since the very beginning of his campaign, Mico the Best believes that musicians can have a great influence to end TB not only in Rwanda but worldwide as he called musicians and from across Africa to become the Stop TB Champions in their respective countries for the good cause. He also called the Stop TB Partnership to give him a helping hand so he can successfully achieve his campaign. Lucica hailed Mico’s commitment to become the Stop TB Champion in Rwanda and pledged to support him in his campaigns once they resume. Though a number of activities aimed at fighting TB across the world were halted by the novel coronavirus, Lucica said they will be resuming them as soon as the world becomes coronavirus-free.
