Tuberculosis- A Public Health Concern

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the major public health issues which is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. Tuberculosis is highly contagious and is usually spread by the coughs and sneezes of an infected person through the air. Infected persons propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to get infected. 

Tuberculosis kills more people than any other infectious disease on the planet. Each year, India reports more than 2.8 million new TB cases; leading to almost half a million deaths.

In recent years, out of the total cases of tuberculosis found in the country, most patients are in the age group of 14 and 24. Though Tuberculosis is curable and preventable, it is not high on the lists of health concerns of most Indians. Each year, the number of tuberculosis patients in India has been increasing gradually, raising a question over the government's approach towards dealing with the lethal disease.

In India, as elsewhere, an increasing proportion of TB cases are now extensively drug-resistant or multidrug-resistant. As drug resistance increases, the tools available to combat TB correspondingly decreases.

The Central government has geared up for eradicating tuberculosis (TB) from India by 2025 and has started various campaigns like National Tuberculosis Control Programme of India (NTCP), Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme of India (RNTCP) and ‘End TB target by 2025’, including free check-ups and medicines, to make it a success. Despite all this, the number of TB patients in India refuses to decline. Thus, the government is more likely to finalize an aggressive national plan to end tuberculosis in the country.

Last month, Health ministers from countries in World Health Organization South-East Asia Region, which bear half the global TB burden, and WHO signed a Call for Action for Ending TB, pledging to scale-up efforts and implement adequately funded, innovative, multisectoral and comprehensive measures to achieve the global target to end tuberculosis by 2030.

Committing to take exceptional action and high-impact interventions as per the Call for Action, the Health Minister of India asserted that India has the capability to resolve some of the biggest challenges of public health such as: TB, the country aims to tackle inequity in health and improve health and productivity of the people. The Drug Resistant TB is a major problem that affecting our populations and considerably contributing to the morbidity and mortality.

India is now better prepared to address TB better than ever before. Under Conditional Access Programme (CAP), a new anti-TB drug ‘Bedaquiline’ has been introduced to improve outcomes of drug resistant TB treatment. The programme possesses advanced technical, operational and effective interventions for diagnosis, treatment, surveillance and care of national TB plans.

PSM-India urges everybody to intensify their efforts in eliminating tuberculosis from the country. Leave no one Behind-Unite to End TB by 2025.