He was speaking as the Guest of Honour at the 77th National Conference of Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases (NATCON) in Agra, India. Co-hosted by TB Association of India, Uttar Pradesh TB Association of India, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), and partners, this conference brought together over 800 medical experts and researchers from the field of TB and other chest diseases in India, and worldwide.
"Healthcare workers from varied disciplines and medical specialities and at all levels - from frontline workers in the communities to those in clinics and hospitals or medical colleges, or those shaping national and international guidelines and contributing to TB research - all of them are collectively helping India to advance towards fulfilling the dream of our Prime Minister to eliminate TB by 2025. India has brought the global SDGs target to end TB by 2030, five years earlier to 2025. Together we can end TB," said Dr Vijay Kumar Arora, Chairperson of Tuberculosis Association of India as well as of Southeast Asia region of The Union.
Are we on track?
The WHO Global TB Report 2022 shows that India had an estimated 3 million new TB cases and over half a million TB deaths. The number of new estimated drug-resistant TB cases has been hovering around 150,000 every year, which includes those who got infected with drug-resistant bacteria as well as those who have been through TB treatment earlier.
Every new case of active TB disease comes from the vast pool of people with latent TB infection. We need to do more to break the chain of transmission of TB as well as make more efforts to prevent emergence of any further drug-resistant TB.
The number of new TB patients declined by 18% between 2015 and 2021 in India but this pace of decline is clearly not enough to end TB by 2025. "Number of new TB cases has to decline much more steeply," said Dr Vishwa Mohan Katoch, a stalwart TB researcher, who is the former Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research and former Secretary of Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Presently, he is also the President of TB Association of India.
"In the past we have been able to achieve a 2 to 5% annual decline of TB cases but if we want to end TB we have to ensure that the number of new TB cases declines at an yearly rate of over 10%," said Dr Katoch.
Thinking out of the box approach is key. For example, contacts of a person who has active TB disease may not always be those who are in the household. Infection transmission occurs not only in homes but also at workplaces or even healthcare facilities.
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