To eliminate TB, India first needs to improve its private healthcare sector

The private sector handles an estimated two-thirds of India's 2.74 million new TB cases--the highest TB burden in the world

Only 35% cases of tuberculosis (TB)--an infectious air-borne bacterial disease that mostly affects the lungs--were handled correctly by the private healthcare sector in Mumbai and Patna between November 2014 and August 2015, according to a new study.

Untreated or partially-treated TB patients may infect others, at least partially nullifying India’s attempts to beat back a disease that claims nearly half a million lives every year, said the study published in September 2018 in the journal Plos Medicine, and jeopardise the country’s ambition of eliminating TB by 2025.

The private sector handles an