As the people around the world observed the International Tuberculosis (TB) Day on Friday, India continues to struggle to win over the dreaded disease with nearly 41 per cent TB patients in India failing to get adequate treatment causing nearly 5 lakh deaths every year in the country.
Quoting a Global Status Report on Tuberculosis 2016, Dr. Ashok Kaushik, Dean (Academic and Student Affairs) from IIHMR University, Jaipur informed that India suffers from over 3 million TB patients and that every day more than 1,400 people die of TB.
"According to India’s Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP), notification of TB cases is estimated to be only 58 per cent where over one-third of the cases are not diagnosed, or they are diagnosed but not treated or they are diagnosed and treated but are not notified to the RNTCP. WHO Reports mentions that, up to 10 lakh Indians suffering from TB are not notified/ registered," said Kaushik.
Against the backdrop of renewed efforts to control TB worldwide, experts highlighted the need to consider the improved methods to estimate the public health impact of TB programs.
Tuberculosis falls under the category of curable and eradicable diseases.
Among the key challenges with the TB eradication programmes, are undernourished population, lack of strong immunity, HIV in TB, pollution both indoor and outdoor, smoking.
Such challenges lead to reactivation of TB; and need to have targeted and robust awareness campaigns like Swachhata Abhiyan at national level to reduce reactivation of TB in the population.
Delays in diagnosis, inadequate treatment and follow up, prolonged costly treatment and ill equipped public and private healthcare facilities aggravate the situation not allowing TB to be eliminated from the nation.
The Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), Jaipur and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS Centre (STAC) have technical tie-up for conducting training and capacity building for prevention and control of tuberculosis in the SAARC nations.