India records 17.7% decline in TB incidence from 2015 to 2023: WHO report

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India has recorded a 17.7 per cent decline in tuberculosis incidence from 237 per lakh population in 2015 to 195 in 2023, which is more than double the global decline of 8.3 per cent, Health Ministry sources have said citing a WHO report.

In its Global TB Report 2024 released on October 29, WHO has acknowledged the tremendous progress India has made in closing the gap of missed tuberculosis cases since 2015, the sources said.

"In 2023, India is estimated to have had 27 lakh TB cases, of which 25.1 lakh were diagnosed and put on treatment. This has buoyed India's treatment coverage to 89 per cent in 2023 from 72 per cent in 2015, thereby bridging the gap of missing cases," an official source said.

The source said WHO has "acknowledged a drop in India's tuberculosis incidence from 237 per lakh population in 2015, to 195 per lakh population in 2023 accounting for a 17.7 per cent decline.

"This is more than double the pace of decline as compared to the global decline of 8.3 per cent," the source said.

The Health Ministry sources asserted that the leap in coverage has been due to the momentum India has created around tuberculosis case finding and reflects the efforts of decentralisation of healthcare services through over 1.7 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs in the country.

While WHO had downsized its estimation of tuberculosis mortality in India last year, the current report documents the sustained reduction in deaths due to the disease achieved by India from 28 per lakh population to 22 per lakh population, a 21.4 per cent decline, they said.

The government has been able to strengthen and expand the National TB Elimination Programme with sustained domestic financing, official sources said.

The tuberculosis budget saw a historic 5.3 times leap in allocation from Rs 640 crores in 2015 to Rs 3400 crores in 2022-23. The WHO report noted that a majority of the funding for the TB programme comes from government resources.

Over the years, India has been able to scale up state-of-the-art molecular diagnostic tools, introduce newer and more efficacious treatment regimens and provide free screening, diagnosis and treatment to all tuberculosis patients.

The government is procuring over 800 artificial intelligence-enabled portable chest x-ray machines to complement India's extensive TB laboratory network, the largest in the world with 7,767 rapid molecular testing facilities and 87 culture and drug susceptibility testing laboratories, the sources said.

"This acknowledgement by WHO signifies the paradigm shift India has brought to tuberculosis care over the past eight years. In October, the government announced the enhancement of support under Nikshay Poshan Yojana (NPY) from Rs 500 per month to each patient for the entire duration of the treatment to Rs 1,000," another source said.

To date, Rs 3,202 crore has been disbursed to 1.13 crore beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer under the scheme. While enhancement of NPY support will benefit all 25 lakh tuberculosis patients in a year, the introduction of Energy Dense Nutritional Supplementation (EDNS) would cover approximately 12 lakh under-nourished TB patients.

EDNS would be provided to all eligible patients for the first two months of their treatment.