Blitz Bureau
INDIA’S National TB Elimination Program (NTEP) has reached a major milestone, with 26.07 lakh TB cases notified in 2024, the highest ever recorded. Since 2015, the incidence rate of TB has dropped by 17.7 per cent, from 237 cases per lakh population to 195 in 2023, while TB-related deaths have decreased by 21.4 per cent.
These achievements were highlighted by Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Anupriya Patel while inaugurating the India Innovation Summit – “Pioneering Solutions to End TB” at the Bharat Mandapam Convention Centre in Delhi She praised the transformative role of innovation in India’s TB elimination efforts. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has made remarkable strides in TB control,” she said and added, “The number of missing cases has been reduced from 15 lakh in 2015 to 2.5 lakh in 2023.”
The summit, jointly organized by the Department of Health Research (DHR), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and the Central TB Division (CTD) of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, aims to fasttrack India’s progress toward eliminating TB by 2025. Patel also detailed the advancements in TB treatment, including the rollout of a shorter, safer oral regimen for drugresistant TB across all states and Union Territories, which has improved treatment success rates from 68 per cent in 2020 to 75 per cent in 2022.
