According to the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report 2024 released on 29th October 2024, India has registered a 17.7% decline in TB incidence from 237 per lakh population in 2015 to 195 in 2023, which is more than twice the global average decline of 8.3%.
- The report has acknowledged the significant progress made by India in bridging the gap of missed TB cases since 2015.
- As per the report, the net reduction in the global number of deaths caused by TB between 2015 and 2023 was 23%, which is almost 1/3rd of the WHO End TB strategy milestone of a 75% reduction by 2025.
Global Scenario:
i.The report showed that globally, the number of deaths caused by TB has declined in 2023, from 1.32 million (in 2022) to 1.25 million (in 2023).
ii.As per the report, WHO African and European regions have made the most significant progress in terms of net reduction in TB incidence rate of 42% and 38% respectively, also 79 countries achieved reductions of minimum 20%.
- But, still this progress in rate of TB incidence is far from the WHO End TB Strategy milestone of 50% reduction by 2025.
iii.Globally, 8.2 million people were reported as newly diagnosed with TB in 2023, increased from 7.5 million people in 2022.
iv.Also, the global gap between the estimated number of TB incident cases and the reported number of people with newly diagnosed with TB (notified cases) has decreased to 2.7 million in 2023, down from about 4 million in both 2020 and 2021 and also below the pre-pandemic level of 3.2 million in 2019.
v.As per the report, Low-and-middle income countries (LMICs) accounted for 87% of the global TB burden.
- The report highlighted top 5 countries which contributed 56% of the global TB burden: India (26%), Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), the Philippines (6.8%) and Pakistan (6.3%).
Key Progress to achieve new global targets for 2027 set at UN high-level meeting on TB:
i.Globally, people diagnosed with TB who were initially tested with WHO- recommended rapid test was 48% in 2023 (set target is to achieve 100% by 2027).
ii.USD 5.7 billion was received as funding for TB prevention, diagnostic, and treatment services in 2023 (set target is to achieve USD 22 billion by 2027) and USD 1 billion was received as funding for TB research in 2022 (set target is to achieve USD 5billion by 2027)
iii.The rate of global TB treatment coverage in 2023 was 75% (set target is to achieve 90% by 2027.)
India-Specific Key Findings:
i.As per the report, India is estimated to have had 27 lakh TB cases in 2023, of which 25.1 lakh were diagnosed and put on treatment, with this, India’s treatment coverage has increased from 72% (in 2015) to 89% (in 2023).
- According to Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the leap in coverage has been due to the momentum India has created around TB case finding and reflects the efforts of decentralization of healthcare services through more than 1.7 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs in the country.
ii.The WHO has downsized its projection of TB mortality in India in 2023 as the its latest report shows the deaths related to TB in India has declined by 21.4%, from 28 per lakh population to 22 per lakh population.
Key Progress made by India to End TB by 2025:
i.The budget to eliminate TB from India saw a historic increase of 5.3 times in allocation from Rs 640 crores in 2015 to Rs 3,400 crores in 2022-23. The WHO report highlighted that major part of the funding for the National TB Elimination Program (NTEP) comes from government resources.
ii.The Government of India (GoI) is procuring more than 800 Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled portable chest X-ray machines to strengthen India’s extensive TB laboratory network, the largest in the world with over 7,000 rapid molecular testing facilities and 87 culture and drug susceptibility testing laboratories.
iii.In October 2024, the GoI announced the enhancement of support under Ni-Kshay Poshan Yojana (NPY) from existing Rs 500 per month to each patient to Rs 1000 per month per patient for complete duration of the treatment.
- It is estimated that this enhancement of NPY support will benefit al 25 lakh TB patients annually; the introduction of Energy Dense Nutritional Supplementation (EDNS) would cover nearly 12 lakh under-nourished TB patients.
- Till date, the GoI has disbursed Rs 3,202 crore to 1.13 crore beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT)under NPY.
iv.The Union MoHFW has approved the introduction of the BPaLM regimen in September 2024. It is a novel treatment for Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) under its NTEP.
v.India has notified 19.88 lakh TB patients (from January to September 2024) against 19.08 lakh TB patients during the same time period in 2023, with an overall increase of 4.2%.
- While, private sector notification has increased from 6.99 lakhs (from January to September 2023) to 7.22 lakhs during the same period in 2024.
- Despite 1/3rd of the notifications coming from the private sector, NTEP has achieved the treatment success rate of 87.6% in 2024 (Jan-Sept).
vi.Under Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan (PMTBMBA), over 54,000 new Ni-kshay Mitra have been registered and 8.3 lakh food baskets have been distributed from January to October, 2024 and during the same period in 2024, TB Preventive Treatment (TPT) has been provided to 12.23 lakh beneficiaries.
About World Health Organisation (WHO):
Director General (DG)- Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Headquarters- Geneva, Switzerland
Established – 7th April, 1948
