Special correspondent Sonal Matharu’s incisive reportage on how tuberculosis and silicosis are silently killing people in a Jharkhand village (published in the December 1 issue of Governance Now) has won her the prestigious REACH Lilly MDR-TB Partnership Media Award for 2015.

Sonal reported how the state-run programmes are running short of expectations to deal with tuberculosis cases in a village where people mostly work in dust-raising industries.

R Prasad of The Hindu also received the award for TB reporting in English language for his report on child-friendly, fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs for TB.

In the local language category, the awards were presented to Reji Joseph of Rashtriya Deepika (Malayalam) and Prashant Dubey of Subah Sawere (Hindi).

Instituted in 2010, the REACH Lilly MDR-TB Partnership Media Awards highlight the role played by media in giving voice to the persons living with TB.

Speaking on the occasion, Anshu Prasad, joint secretary, ministry of health, said that the growing number of first time TB patients who are drug resistant is the biggest challenge for Indian agencies.

“The DR-TB challenge is much bigger than HIV- which has somehow positioned itself in the media to get enough attention. TB has not been able to do that,” he said.

Prakash said though the incidence of TB in India in last decade has halved; it is still the largest killer. Besides, he said, if India does not deal with drug resistant TB, the world will never be able to eliminate the bacteria induced disease.

The awards were presented by Lucica Ditiu, executive secretary of the STOP TB Partnership.

Ambassador Jonathan Addleton, mission director, USAID India, and Nalini Krishnan, director REACH, were also present at the award ceremony on Tuesday.