Health Minister launches 100-day campaign to reduce TB incidence and mortality 

Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda. File.
| Photo Credit: ANI

“The rate of TB (tuberculosis) decline in India has doubled from 8.3% in 2015 to 17.7% today, much ahead of the global average. Deaths due to TB have also reduced in India by 21.4% in the last 10 years,” Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda said at the launch of the intensified national ‘100 day TB elimination campaign’ on Saturday (December 7, 2024), in Haryana.

The goal of the campaign, to be implemented in 347 districts across the country, is to find and treat ‘missing TB cases’, especially in high-risk groups, and reduce TB deaths significantly.

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Addressing the gathering, the Union Health Minister said that the campaign had been launched with the intention to provide new momentum to the goal of ‘TB-mukt (free)Bharat’. 

The Minister said that TB is now detected early due to pan Indian network of over 1.7 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs. 

“The government has significantly scaled up diagnostic services by increasing the number of laboratories from 120 in 2014 to 8,293 laboratories today. It has also introduced a daily regimen of drug-sensitive TB, including a new, shorter and more effective regimen, which has improved TB treatment success rate to 87%,” the Minister said.

The Health Ministry in its release added that it had now made it mandatory for even private medical practitioners to notify new TB patients, so that their treatment could be followed up immediately. “This might look like a small step but it has led to an 8-fold increase in the rate of TB notifications in the private sector,” the release said.

Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said that there would be no shortage of either medicines or consumables, and appealed to all sections of civil society to participate actively and make the campaign a success. 

Among the highlights of the campaign is the deployment of mobile, ultra-portable, AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled X-ray units and molecular tests to bring advanced diagnostics closer to people, especially in remote areas.