India notified 24.04 lakh tuberculosis cases: Annual report

India reported 24.04 lakh cases of tuberculosis in 2019, an increase of 14 % of the disease burden over the previous year, the Annual TB Report released here on Thursday had disclosed.

The increase in number of TB patients is significant as early accurate diagnosis if the disease and prompt treatment was necessary for eliminating the disease.

The report, released by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan here, also highlighted the contribution of the private sector which had notified 6.78 lakh TB patients, an increase of 35% over the previous year.

Vardhan said the collaborative efforts have helped reduce the number of “missing cases” to 2.9 lakh as against the 10 lakh missing cases in 2017.

Due to easy availability of molecular diagnostics, the proportion of children diagnosed with TB increased to 8% in 2019 compared to 6% in 2018, the report said.

It also highlighted that the provision of HIV testing for all notified TB patients increased from 67% in 2018 to 81% in 2019.

The government had declared that it would make efforts to eliminate TB by 2025, five years ahead of the global target of 2030.

“To end TB by 2025, expansion of TB services and addressing determinants of TB that are beyond health, through a multi-sectoral approach is necessary. All these efforts are yielding significant results,” Vardhan said.

The report said that approved budgets towards the programme have increased substantially, from Rs 640 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 3,333.21 crore in 2019-20.

“Expansion of treatment services has resulted in a 12% improvement in the treatment success rate of notified patients. For 2019, it is 81% compared to 69% in 2018,” the report said.

The salient feature of this year is that for the first time Central TB Division (CTD) introduced a quarterly ranking on TB elimination efforts by all the states and UTs.

Treatment linkage of drug-resistant TB patients, HIV testing of tuberculosis patients, nutritional assistance to in the form of NIKSHAY Poshan Yojana (DBT), Universal Drug Susceptibility Testing (UDST) coverage among notified patients, TB Preventive Therapy (TPT) coverage and financial expenditure are included in the assessment criteria, the health minister said