India accounts for 26 percent of global TB burden, says WHO

India’s ambitious target to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025, five years ahead of the global target, appears ambitious, with a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighting that the India accounts for 26% of the global TB burden, the highest among 30 high-burden countries.

According to the Global TB Report 2024, globally, TB also became the leading infectious disease killer in 2023, surpassing COVID-19. The WHO reported about 8.2 million new cases of tuberculosis, the highest incidence since surveillance began in 1995. India topped the list, followed by Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan. This also represents a notable increase from the 7.5 million reported in 2022.

The main infectious disease was most common among men (55 percent). Women made up more than 30 percent, while 12 percent were children and young adolescents.

“It is a scandal that tuberculosis still kills and sickens so many people, even though we have the tools to prevent, detect and treat it,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. , in the report. He called on countries to “deliver on the concrete commitments they have made to scale up the use of these tools and end TB.”

The report identifies five key risk factors for tuberculosis: undernutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, tobacco use and diabetes, highlighting the need for multisectoral action to address these issues.

The report indicates that multidrug-resistant tuberculosis poses a significant obstacle. Despite treatment success rates reaching 68%, only 44% of people estimated to have MDR-TB were diagnosed and treated in 2023. “Of the 400,000 people estimated to have developed MDR/RR-TB, only 44% were diagnosed and treated in 2023. processed. in 2023,” the report said.

The complexities of managing these cases make eradication efforts more difficult. Although coverage of preventive treatment for tuberculosis has been maintained for people living with HIV, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis remains a public health crisis.

The report calls for increased funding for TB research and continued efforts to improve treatment success rates for multidrug-resistant TB, which have reached 68%. “Critical determinants like poverty and GDP per capita also require coordinated multi-sectoral action,” the report says, while calling for increased funding for TB research.

On the positive side, the report notes a narrowing of the gap between the estimated number of new TB cases and those reported. It has shrunk to around 2.7 million, down from Covid pandemic levels of around 4 million in 2020 and 2021.

In March 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged to eliminate TB in India by 2025, while the rest of the world aimed to achieve the TB-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.