The only good news after a long tragic trail of bad news is that tuberculosis incidence rate. The rate of tuberculosis in India has decreased by almost 50,000 patients over the past one year–according to the reports given by World Health Organization (WHO)-2019, in the edition of the Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report released on Thursday.
As per the reports of 2017, India had 27.4 lakh patients of tuberculosis which drop down to 26.9 lakh in 2018. Even the incidence per 1,00,000 population has also decreased from 204 in 2017 to 199 in 2018. The number of patients being tested for rifampicin resistance has shown an increase from 32% in 2017 to 46% in 2018. Moreover, the treatment success rate has also increased to 81% for new cases, which was 69% in 2016.
The report concludes a comprehensive and updated assessment of the disease epidemic and progress at global, regional and country levels concerning India.
Tuberculosis: Disease Pattern
The report highlights data on disease trends and the response to the epidemic in 202 countries and territories of the world. “This includes trends in TB incidence and mortality, data on case detection and treatment results for TB, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), TB/HIV, TB prevention, universal health coverage as well as financing,” noted the report.
According to experts, TB remains the top infectious killer in the world, taking around 4000 lives in the world in a single day. The report also shows progress towards set targets at the first-ever United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting held in 2018 on TB disease. It brought together heads of state, as well as the targets of the WHO “End TB Strategy” and Sustainable Development Goals countries to work on the same and eradicate it as soon as possible.
Reports of All Cases
The Indian TB-Report 2019 explains that India is closest in covering all TB cases through the online notification system called as NIKSHAY. “With the aim of universal access to free diagnostics and treatment services, state-of-the-art diagnostic tests and quality assured drugs had been extended to all patients seeking TB care,” notes the India report.
At least we are somewhere leading behind but in a right way. It is not like the Global Hunger Index where we are behind our so-called loving neighbour country or in the Economic status–where we are dropping down our level to the early days of post-independence.
