21.5 lakh TB cases reported in India in 2018: Report

New Delhi: A total of 21.5 lakh TB cases were reported in 2018, an increase of 17 per cent over 18 lakh in 2017, thus showing an improvement in reporting and subsequent treatment, as per the Annual India TB Report for 2019 released on Thursday.

As per the report, the sustained efforts of the government of India towards TB control have led to an unprecedented increase in TB notifications and improvements in diagnostics, adherence and treatment outcomes.

Moreover, notifications from private sector health care providers reached 5.4 lakh, an increase of 40 per cent, contributing to 25 per cent of all TB notifications.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced India's revised target for ending TB by 2025, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goal targets of 2030. India accounts for a quarter of the global TB burden with an estimated 27 lakh new cases in 2018.

Under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), 14.4 crore vulnerable people were screened, resulting in reporting of an additional 49,733 cases. The efforts to improve diagnostics has led to a 52 per cent increase in drug-resistant TB detection, along with decentralization of drug resistant treatment centres (DR-TB) centers from 197 to 509 in the past year.

The largest ever National Drug Resistance Survey in the world for 13 anti-TB drugs has been completed and it has indicated about 6.2 per cent prevalence of drug-resistant TB in India among all TB patients.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday also launched the new "TB Harega Desh Jeetega" campaign, along with the National TB Prevalence Survey.

Multi-stakeholder and community participation will form the pivot of the countrywide campaign. "As part of our commitment to end TB, we have established patient forums in over 95 per cent of all districts in the first 100 days, which clearly shows our strong commitment to ending TB in the shortest time," he said.