Over 25 lakh TB cases notified last year

As many as 25.55 lakh cases of tuberculosis were notified last year, the highest ever since the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) began in the 60s, according to a government report.

Nearly 32 per cent of the notified cases came from the private health sector, the report said.

Of the total TB cases notified last year, over 8.4 lakh were from the private sector, a 17 per cent increase from 2022 and an exponential rise since 2017.

''The country continued the consistent trend of improvement in case finding in 2023, as demonstrated by the notification of 25.55 lakh TB cases and a total Annualized TB case notification rate (ACNR) of 178.8 per lakh population which is the highest ever achieved by India,'' the India TB report 2024 said.

ACNR is the number of TB cases notified per lakh population on annual basis.

In the private sector, the Case Notification Rate (CNR) achieved was 59.2 cases per lakh population, the highest ever achieved under the programme, the report stated.

India's efforts to ensure early detection and treatment initiation, along with a host of community engagement efforts has resulted in 16 per cent decline in TB incidence (new cases emerging each year) and a 18 per cent reduction in mortality due to the disease since 2015.

According to the report, TB mortality was 23 per lakh population with 18 per cent decline as compared to 2015 (28 per lakh population).

The resulting estimates of the number of deaths caused by TB between 2000 and 2019 are considerably lower than the interim estimates published in 2022.

Also, India had one of the best estimates (over 80 per cent) of treatment coverage among 30-high burden countries.

Estimates of the percentage of the population facing catastrophic health expenditures were greater than or equal to 15 per cent of the population for India, showing an upward trend since 2000, the report said.

''The treatment coverage had improved to 80 per cent of the estimated TB cases, an increase of 19 per cent over the previous year,'' the report said.

''In 2024, a key indicator case notifications reached a record number: over 25.5 lakh cases were reported, thereby closing the gap between the estimated and reported cases this gap in numbers was more than 10 lakhs in 2015 and we have managed to close this gap to less than 3 lakh by 2023,'' the health ministry said.

Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of notifications as compared to the previous year, followed by Bihar.

In 2023, a total of more than 20.5 crore individuals were screened for signs/symptoms suggestive of TB as a part of active case finding efforts. Of those screened, 1.1 per cent (21.8 lakh) were examined and tested for TB and 35,438 cases (1.6 per cent out of those tested) were diagnosed.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)