On June 24, 2020, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s (MoHFW) Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and its Minister of State (MoS), Ashwini Kumar Choubey launched the Annual “India TB (Tuberculosis) Report 2020” through a virtual event which is released by Central TB Division (CTD), MoHFW . The salient feature of 2020 report is that for the first time CTD introduced a quarterly ranking on TB elimination efforts by all the states and UTs.
- In accordance with the report, there were around 24.04 lakh TB patients in 2019, a 14% increase in as compared to the year 2018.
- It should be noted that the sustainable goal of eradicating TB globally is 2030, but the Indian government is committed to achieve this target in the country by 2025.
- In this regard, the programme has been renamed from the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) to National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP). 14 committees have been constituted at national level to provide technical guidance for programme implementation.
- The Minister also released a Joint Monitoring Mission report, a manual on Direct Benefit Transfer to TB patients under NIKSHAY system, a Training Module, and the quarterly newsletter NIKSHAY Patrika.
Following table shows the best performing states and UTs as per report:
| Rank | State |
|---|---|
| Larger states with more than 50 lakh population | |
| 1 | Gujarat |
| 2 | Andhra Pradesh |
| 3 | Himachal Pradesh |
| Smaller states with less than 50 lakh population | |
| 1 | Tripura |
| 2 | Nagaland |
| Union Territory | |
| 1 | Dadra and Nagar Haveli |
| 2 | Daman & Diu |
Key achievements listed in the report:
-There has been a reduction in the number of missing cases to 2.9 lakh cases as against more than 10 lakhs in 2017.
-Private sector notifications increased by 35% with 6.78 lakh TB patients notified.
-Due to easy availability of molecular diagnostics, the proportion of children diagnosed with TB increased to 8 percent in 2019 compared to 6 percent in 2018.
-Provision of HIV testing for all notified TB patients increased from 67 percent in 2018 to 81 percent in 2019.
-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.
-More than 4.5 lakh DOT (Directly observed treatment) Centers provide treatment covering almost every village across the country.
-Near-complete on-line notification of TB patients have been achieved through the NIKSHAY system. NIKSHAY also expanded the provision of four Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) schemes of the programme:
- Nikshay Poshan Yojana (NPY) to TB patients
- The incentive to Treatment Supporters
- An incentive to Private Providers and
- Transport incentive to TB patients in the notified tribal areas
About NIKSHAY
NI-KSHAY-(Ni=End, Kshay=TB), a web enabled patient management system for TB control under the NTEP is developed and maintained by the CTD in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) Country office for India.
- It is used by health functionaries at various levels across the country both in the public and private sector, to register cases.
- It also functions as the National TB Surveillance System and enables reporting of various surveillance data to the Government of India.
Static :
World Tuberculosis Day– March 24
2020 theme– It’s Time
TB Campaign (India)– TB Harega Desh Jeetega
